In week 10, Robert and David discuss The Roches, as we feature an alternate take of Chicago from Exposure, with vocals shared by Terre Roche and Peter Hammill, and add Hammond Song from The Roches’ first album to the Spotify playlist.

The three singing sisters from New Jersey, Maggie, Terre and Suzzy, had moved to New York City in the 70s and were making a name for themselves playing the Greenwich Village folk clubs. 

April 16, 1978, Robert Fripp sees The Roches.

Robert first went to see them play at The Bottom Line on the recommendation of New York Times critic John Rockwell, who would later rate their Fripp-produced first album, The Roches, the best release of 1979.

Once again recording at the Hit Factory with engineer Ed Sprigg, Terre Roche was one of the vocalists brought in by Fripp to sing on Exposure after Daryl Hall’s manager, Tommy Motolla, had prevented Hall from featuring on more than two tracks. This setback proved fortuitous as the incoming singers turned in some spectacular performances. 

Before the Roches became a trio, Maggie and Terre had famously crashed an NYU songwriting class with Paul Simon, which led to the two sisters singing backing vocals on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and getting their own record deal. However, disillusioned by the record industry, they suddenly left it all behind and went to Hammond, Louisiana, a story that forms the subject matter for Hammond Song. Recorded towards the end of an incredibly productive year for Fripp in New York, the album is striking for its restraint. Aside from Robert's lyrical guitar solo on Hammond Song, the performances are largely unadorned, allowing the sisters' close vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars to shine. Their songs of truth are delivered without artifice - but with a good deal of humour - using Fripp’s audio vérité production style.

Suzzy, Maggie and Terre on the cover of their debut album.

Listen to this week’s commentary for the full story.

Download Robert Fripp @ 80 Vol.10  Chicago (Terre Roche and Peter Hammill alt take).   

Listen to Hammond Song on the Spotify playlist: Robert Fripp @ 80  

Also available on the official YouTube channel:

Your chance to vote for Pat and Deb Mastelotto, who are currently in the running to become America’s new first couple, as they raise funds for hunger relief and ocean conservation. There’s a top prize of $20,000 for their chosen charity and a dinner date with Jeff and Emilie Goldblum waiting for them if they win.

You can take our word for it that Pat and Deb are two of the nicest people you could ever meet. They remain each other’s biggest fans, best friends, and favourite travel buddies, and, as regular visitors to this site will already know, have collaborated on the 2021 Valentine’s Day CD release, A Romantic’s Guide To King Crimson, and were both members of the Exposure band that toured in 2025. 

Vote for The Mastelottos to be America's Favourite Couple while supporting two great causes! There are two days left to cast your daily vote here:  https://americasfavcouple.org/2026/the-mastelottos

Recorded in June 1990 at Manhattan Center Studios in New York. It was released on what would be Fripp’s final recording for EG Records.

A version of Eye Of The Needle had first appeared in 1985 on the League of Crafty Guitarists - Live album, where it is subtitled Guitar Craft Theme III.  As Robert reveals in this week’s commentary, it remains for him one of the most powerful pieces of music to come out of Guitar Craft. Its evolution came as part of the movement from playing the calisthenic exercises for left and right hands that are foundational to the courses, towards playing music. 

The composition came to life on a Guitar Craft course at Claymont Mansion in West Virginia in 1985 after Robert presented the themes to the piece to the assembled students. 

Working in the guitar circle in the ballroom with the full group of course attendees was a daily part of each course, where Robert would typically present parts to individual players while building up a complete piece of music played by the whole group. 

A typical day in Guitar Craft in 1985. 

The League of Crafty Guitarists are represented on this recording by Steve Ball, Tobin Buttram, Guido Ernst, Nigel Gavin, Tony Geballe, Curt Golden, Ralph Gorga, Trey Gunn, Steve Jolemore, Bert Lams, Victor McSurely, Hideyo Moriya, Hernán Núñez, David Pittaway, Paul Richards, Pietro Russino. 

Download Robert Fripp @ 80 Vol.9  Eye Of The Needle.   

Follow the Spotify playlist: Robert Fripp @ 80  

Also available on the official YouTube channel:

A black ’59 Les Paul, bought in London in 1968, is the guitar most associated with Robert Fripp from his time playing with King Crimson from 1969 to 1974, the 1977 Heroes session for Bowie, his New York years recording Exposure and making records with Daryl Hall, Peter Gabriel and Blondie, and the extensive tours playing Frippertronics or trying to coax punters onto the dance floor with his new wave dance band The League of Gentlemen. Here we look at what might then be considered a lesser instrument, a Japanese copy of a black Les Paul made by Tokai, but it was a favourite of the guitarist and his primary instrument for the best part of a decade and used for the majority of his professional work in the years 1985-1994. 

Robert's Tokai photographed at DGM in 2020.

In fact, Robert has favoured a number of Japanese Les Paul copies ever since. Renowned for their exceptional build quality and meticulous attention to detail, these guitars lack the historical baggage of the Gibson originals, which exist in only limited numbers - the Les Paul Custom was discontinued way back in 1961 (in favour of the more modern-looking SG body shape) and not reintroduced until 1968. The early ones are the holy grail for players and collectors, and the ’59 is just about as good as it gets. The advantage of a Japanese replica, though, was it could be customised to the owner’s specification with the addition of a guitar synth pickup, floating bridge tremolo system, string locking and other modifications, all of which require a certain amount of drilling and/or routing of the guitar body. Something no self-respecting luthier would want to do to a vintage ’59 Black Beauty Gibson. For the player, this made for a more versatile instrument, and for a working player who might be called upon to play sessions, it was one guitar that could do many things. Speaking about his choice of instrument to Sound on Sound magazine’s Mark Prendergast in 1988, he said, “It depends on what the brief is. If I've been asked to go into a session - for example, David Sylvian - and work in a very broad way, then I'll take a Tokai Les Paul copy which has been modified for me,” adding that “ It's the best guitar I have for being able to tackle anything, but it's not the best guitar for a specific task.”

The guitar was a one-of-a-kind instrument, a gift from Tokai in 1984, a year that had seen King Crimson complete a high-profile tour of Japan in April & May. “It was given to me at Arny’s Shack via Tony Arnold by the man who imported them to the UK. He told me that the Tokai LP copies were not as successful as the Fender copies, and he sent them all back – except the one he gave me”. It was a copy of a Les Paul Standard with DiMarzio PAF pickups, and the initials RF inlaid in the headstock, and similar to the TLS100 offered in the 1984 catalogue. 

A range of Gibson knock-offs from the 1984 Tokai catalogue.

The Tokai Gakki Company was founded in 1947 in the coastal city of Hammametsu, known as Japan’s ‘Music City’, famous for instrument makers and home to headquarters of major music brands Roland and Yamaha. Tokai initially made harmonicas and pianos, moving into acoustic guitars in 1965 and electric guitars in 1968. The company had something of a golden era in the late 70s and early 80s, producing exceptionally well-crafted replicas of instruments by Gibson and Fender at a time when those American companies were experiencing a decline in their own production quality. Other Japanese brands, including Aria, Ibanez, Yamaha, Fernandes and Burny, also put out similar instruments in what became known as ‘the lawsuit era’ when the American companies threatened to sue the Japanese makers for infringing their design rights. This often hinged upon the shape of the headstock; Gibson had trademarked its classic ‘open book’ shape and put pressure on manufacturers who were producing exact replicas. The early Tokais had even carried the Les Paul name on the headstock in the same script used by Gibson, with the additional word Reborn in much smaller size. Getting around these bones of contention was simply a matter of adding a dimple to the headstock outline and renaming the model the Love Rock instead of Les Paul, (their Fender Strat and Tele replicas became the Springy Sound and Breezy Sound), but for a long time, Tokai models were not allowed to be sold in the USA. More recently, with increasing competition coming from Korean and Chinese manufacturers who could produce instruments at lower cost, Tokai began making guitars outside Japan, but its Made in Japan line remains highly sought after. Robert’s Tokai comes from the classic period and has the Gibson-style headstock.

Tokai or not Tokai? Headstock comparison from Robert's 1959 Les Paul and 1984 Tokai.

Throughout his career, Robert has embraced new guitar technology and the Tokai provided the perfect blank canvas for his preferred modifications. He had been an early adopter of the Roland GR300 analogue guitar synthesiser, working with it since the time of its release in 1980. It was used extensively with the 80s lineup of King Crimson and, ever since, a guitar synthesiser has remained an integral part of the Fripp sound. On tour with the band during the 1980s, Robert played the Roland GR-303 guitar, which at the time was the only dedicated controller for the distinctive blue synth unit. In the final year of what Fripp termed the Incline to 1984, the band’s three-year campaign in the marketplace, his Roland guitar had been modified with the addition of a Kahler floating bridge. This innovative cam-operated tremolo system had just launched and had been used to great effect by bandmate Adrian Belew on his 1983 solo album Twang Bar King. Roland's release of the GK-1 hexaphonic pickup as a standalone unit in 1987 marked another important development, allowing virtually any guitar to be converted into a synthesiser controller. Consequently, the Tokai received both the GK-1 and the Kahler as Fripp sought to build an instrument tailored to his needs.

It would also be Fripp’s first electric guitar set up to use the radical new tuning he adopted in 1985. After the 1984 tour had completed in Montreal (documented on the Absent Lovers album), King Crimson once again ceased to exist, having fulfilled the three-year commitment that brought about the albums Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair. Robert went into retreat at the American Society for Continuous Education (ASCE) in Claymont, West Virginia, where the work begun at J.G Bennett's Sherborne House continued. The next step for him would be Guitar Craft, and the adoption of the New Standard Tuning (NST), where the guitar’s strings are tuned (from low to high) C, G, D, A, E, G. 

The Claymont mansion in 1984.

Elected president of the ASCE at the end of the year, he was asked by the committee to deliver a guitar seminar as part of the following season’s educational program at Claymont. Initially declining, “I said that I'd been giving guitar lessons since I was 13, and I had no wish to give any more,” but when later asked a second time, it was the new tuning which had flown by in 1983, as he famously sweated in a sauna in New York, that came to mind and changed his decision. After trying it out during the King Crimson writing rehearsals with Adrian Belew in Champaign-Urbana in 1983, it had not borne fruit, but now it finally found its place as the new standard tuning for Guitar Craft, a way of levelling all the students, whether they were beginners or seasoned players, all would be beginning again without access to any of their familiar licks and likely with a few broken strings as they adapted to the higher tension on the top string. For Fripp too, there was a steep learning curve after he made the commitment to work exclusively in the new tuning. He only began exploring it a short time before the first guitar course, “when I figured, hey, I best figure out what's going on with this tuning. That would be March 1985.”

Fripp Fripp: Robert plays the Tokai at a gig with Toyah at Moles Club in 1988.

Guitar Craft became the focus of Robert’s work for the next seven years. The recommended guitar for those attending the courses was the Ovation Shallow Body Cutaway, an electro-acoustic model, which became the instrument he was most often seen playing at that time. He did however still have use for an electric guitar. Following his marriage to Toyah in 1986, Fripp also formed an electric band with his wife, with the Tokai being the chosen guitar for that situation. 

Sessions for other artists were infrequent at this time, but two that were concurrent with the founding of Guitar Craft stand out. As Fripp was wrestling with the new tuning ahead of the first course in March 1985, his old friend Eno invited him to play on the Scott Walker record he and Daniel Lanois were producing at Phil Manzanera’s studio in Chertsey. Presented with complex written chord charts the guitarist had to make the decision that it was too soon to try to play these in NST and he reverted to the old tuning.  For reasons unrelated, the sessions were ultimately abandoned and have never been released.

A little while later, now better acquainted with tuning his guitar in intervals of a fifth, Robert played on former Japan frontman David Sylvian’s album Gone To Earth.

Speaking to Tony Bacon in 1991 he recalled:

“I was a little more familiar with it, but I had no parts to read as such, no really dense extended chords that would make the eyes boggle, let alone the hands. So, nevertheless, I opted to brave it out, and there's nothing like exposure to public ridicule to galvanize the attention. So I'm afraid David had to duck a little in the studio as one or two bold notes flew by. But that was really the no-turning-back point. Though I'm not what I would understand as fluent in the tuning—I'm still learning the tuning.”

The session paved the way for a future collaboration, but Fripp's return to playing electric guitar as a full-time working player would come in response to necessity. A dispute with his former managers at EG for nonpayment of royalties over a two-year period drew him back to the professional life, firstly a tour with David Sylvian in 1992, with an album the following year, and then with a revived King Crimson in 1994. There would also be some overlap with Guitar Craft as the guitarist performed solo Soundscapes supported by several acoustic guitar groups from among his students. Session work for others also became more frequent. Front and centre to all of this was Robert’s Tokai. 

The Tokai in use during the VROOOM sessions at Applehead in Woodstock, NY, in 1994 (photo: Tony Levin).

The guitar was customised to Robert’s specification by his Yorkshire-based guitar tech Ted Lee. A legendary figure on the Manchester and Merseyside music scene in the 60s, Ted was bass player with The Olympics, and while working at Barratts music store in Manchester, he became renowned as a refinisher of guitars, colour matching the newly imported sunburst Stratocasters and Precisions to a range of Fender colours. He went on to start his own guitar business and later taught a course in instrument building at the City of Leeds College of Music, where he nurtured the talents of many future luthiers. More than one DGM-er has found themselves dispatched to the North to ferry a Fripp guitar to Ted for some work to be done or to pick one up when the job was completed.

The modifications to the Tokai:

Roland hexaphonic pickup, installed between the bridge and the bridge Humbucker, sending an individual signal from each string.

Kahler tremolo system.

Behind the nut string clamp.

Recessed plug for the Roland 24 pin connector. 

Phase reversal and coil tap switches for each pickup, providing a plethora of sound options, including simulating a single-coil pickup.

Later (post-1994), a Fernandes Sustainer pickup replaced the neck position PAF humbucker and the scratch plate was removed to facilitate the modifications.

Robert Fripp playing the Tokai in 1993 (photo: Kevin Westenberg).

Main uses:

1985 David Sylvian session Gone To Earth. First use of the New Standard Tuning at a recording session.

1988/89/90  Sunday All Over The World, UK and European tours,  Recording Kneeling At The Shrine.

1992 World Financial Centre Soundscapes, Robert Fripp String Quintet tour, Sylvian / Fripp The First Day tour.

1993 Sylvian / Fripp The First Day album; The Road To Graceland tour and Damage live album; Robert Fripp String Quintet The Bridge Between.

1994 King Crimson VROOOM; Argentina tour and B'Boom live album; 1999 Soundscapes Live in Argentina; FFWD collaboration with Thomas Fehlmann, Kris Weston, and Dr Alex Paterson.

Sessions:

Inga Humpe (Planet Oz, 1991), The Grid (456, 1992, Evolver, 1994), Brian Eno (My Squelchy Life/Nerve Net, 1992), David Cunningham (Water, 1992), Toni Childs (The Woman’s Boat, 1994), John Wetton (Battle Lines, 1994), No-Man (Flowermouth, 1994), Future Sound Of London (Lifeforms, 1994, ISDN, 1994), Rimitti (Sidi Mansour, 1994, Cheikha, 1995).

With the arrival of two Fernandes guitars in 1995, complete with built-in Sustainer system, as well as a 48th Street custom Les Paul copy acquired in 1993, the Tokai was retired from frontline duty and became a practice instrument for home use. It was seen in the DGM studio during preparations for the 2005 soundscapes touring in England, but was not used live. At some point during the intervening decade, and in line with his other current guitars, it had been fitted with a Sustainer pickup in the neck position. It was revibrated by Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars in November 2013. It remains in Robert’s possession and was photographed at the DGM Archive in 2020.

Listen to the Tokai in action on:

1999 Soundscapes - Live in Argentina

The Robert Fripp String Quintet - The Bridge Between

King Crimson - The VROOOM Sessions

King Crimson - B'Boom (Live in Argentina)

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp can also be heard on the official YouTube channel:

For an earlier Fripp guitar Deep Dive check out:  The Gibson Stereo

In December of 1977, Robert had already been in the studio with Phil Collins to work on early ideas for what would become his solo album Exposure. That time, bass-playing duties were fulfilled by erstwhile Crimson colleague, John Wetton and the session took place at Basing Street in West London.

Come the new year and Robert was back in New York, the city he had made home following his sabbatical at Sherborne House, which saw him make a complete withdrawal from the music industry. He was now returning to the fray on his own terms as a self-described ‘small mobile unit'. As sessions began in earnest in January at the Hit Factory with rhythm sections consisting of Tony Levin with drummers Jerry Marotta and Narada Michael Walden, a further date was pencilled into Fripp’s diary on March 26, Easter Sunday, with Levin being joined by Phil Collins to work on the backing tracks for Disengage and North Star.

Phil had been an admirer of King Crimson since the band's breakout year in 1969, telling Prog magazine’s Dave Everley in 2024:, “They were absolutely phenomenal. Like nothing else I’d ever seen. This was before progressive rock was even called ‘progressive rock,’ but it was clear they were doing something that was completely new and fairly astounding. And while everyone else was wearing capes and flouncing about, there he was in his suit, sitting on a stool.”

Tony Levin, Phil Collins and Robert Fripp in 1978.

Reflecting on the Exposure sessions, Collins remembered: “That was an interesting experience. Robert doesn’t work like anyone else. He’s very professorial and very focused – there’s no messing around. That’s not to say he’s not a warm person, because he is, but he knows what he wants from himself, and from you.”

At that point, Phil had spent most of the year preparing for a huge tour with Genesis, the band he now fronted, with 88 dates in North America, Europe and Japan lined up in support of a new album, And Then There Were Three, and with new guitarist Daryl Stuermer. He arrived from Dallas, where production rehearsals had taken place and was able to fit in a session for his old friend before the tour began two days later in Binghamton, in upstate New York. 

Listen as the trio tears it up on a series of takes of Disengage, before turning their attention to the calmer and more reflective North Star, a song which Phil Collins recently described as “one of my favourite pieces of music that I’ve ever played on.”

Download: Exposure Sessions - March 26, 1978.

This week the title track from Fripp and Eno’s second album, Evening Star is paired with Heroes on the Spotify playlist, highlighting the longstanding collaboration between Robert Fripp and former Roxy Music member and ambient music pioneer Brian Eno. 

Brian Eno and Robert Fripp in Paris on the European Tour in 1975.

Along with sessions for Eno’s Another Green World, these were Robert’s first recordings post the break-up of King Crimson in 1974. Most of the work for the album took place in July 1975 following Fripp and Eno’s short European tour. Recording took place at several locations, including Eno’s Maida Vale flat. The Evening Star backing guitar part (which was made into a tape loop by Eno) plus the guitar solo were recorded at AIR Studios in London, with Robert playing his ’59 Les Paul (in Drop D tuning) plugged into his custom Pete Cornish pedal board and a Fender Champ amplifier. Later additions from Eno using the EMS Synthi briefcase synth took place at Basing Street studios in Notting Hill. 

Fripp's Fender Champ used on Evening Star.

A few weeks after the recordings were completed, Robert withdrew from the music industry and began a 10 month retreat at J. G. Bennett’s International Academy for Continuous Education at Sherborne House. During this time the album was released, and Eno paid a visit to open the Sherborne village fete in the summer of ’76.

Fripp, Eno and Bowie at Hansa Studios in Berlin, July 1977.

In February 1977 Robert relocated to New York. It was there, while living at an apartment on Waterside Plaza by the East River, that he received the now-famous phone call from Eno in Berlin, with the invitation from David Bowie that he come and play some “hairy rock n roll guitar” on a record they were making. Armed with the same Les Paul and Cornish pedal board used on Evening Star, the guitarist was soon on a plane and headed for Hansa Studios by the Berlin Wall. Plugging into a Marshall stack without use of a fuzz pedal, and using his proximity from the amp to control the sustain, he made the three passes that were blended by engineer Tony Visconti to create the now familiar lead guitar part on the iconic track Heroes. 

Listen to this week’s commentary to hear the full story.

Download Robert Fripp @ 80 Vol.8  Fripp & Eno Evening Star.   

To listen to Heroes by David Bowie, follow the Spotify playlist: Robert Fripp @ 80  

Also available on the official YouTube channel:

Robert Fripp - Radiophonics.

1995 Soundscapes Volume 1 - Live in Argentina.

Just Business 
BUSINESS ETHICS,
ELAINE STERNBERG (1994) 

 I 

The solo Soundscapes were supported at all the performances by Los Gauchos Allemanes. As in the Californian Soundscape tour of January 1995, where the California Guitar Trio were supporting, Los Gauchos were encouraged to “blow me off”. Those generous members of the public who have read the liner notes to “A Blessing of Tears” might recall that: “I would come onstage and play for some 20 - 30 minutes the kind of whirring, bleeping and droning sounds, a selection of which are presented on this record. Then the (generally polite and patient) audience would gratefully embrace something more recognisably musical from ... ” during this week, Los Gauchos Allemanes. 

The Buenos Aires Guitar Craft Circle, and Crafties from elsewhere in Argentina, provided substantial help and assistance throughout the week. This included busking the queue before the shows, busking the foyer after the shows, and joining myself and Los Gauchos in the middle part of the performance to surround a sizeable proportion of the audience and test its patience, generosity of spirit and listening capacities. 

II 

This small, mobile and independent series of performances is part of an ongoing series which has the aim of finding ways in which intelligence and music, definition and discovery, courtesy and reciprocation may enter into the act of music for both musician and audience. These performances take place within a commercial culture in which we are inescapably ill-placed. We also carry a merchandising stand wherever possible. 

The series of performances is itself part of an ongoing exploration of how one might be a musician, professional musician and human being simultaneously; and how music might enter our sorry world, despite all our efforts to keep it out. 

Discipline Global Mobile, Guitar Craft, Soundscapes are all part of this applied enquiry. I do not speak for the other members of King Crimson, but my personal aims continue within Crimson as well.

III 

Musicians will find support in the community if they provide music which is either needed or wanted. 

The current dominant strategy of the music industry is to persuade the public to want a particular piece of music. This is the hard sell. Typically, the artist is engaged in a series of promotional events, such as interviews and personal appearances. 

My own view is that Soundscapes aren’t much in the way of a product line which accommodates itself to a hard sell. As a musician, I am unable to perform where the performance is only a piece of promotion: this degrades the performance in a subtle way, insults the audience and humiliates the performer. As a professional musician, I am prepared to pretend to powerful creatures of the industry that a performance is promotional. But when I believe it, music will have died inside me. 

And it seems rather silly that I should undertake a series of interviews when I have nothing to say; and when 26 years of interviews, two King Crimson Box Set Scrapbooks, numerous lengthy articles and several books provide readily available answers to almost all the questions which are ever asked of me. 

Another approach, and a soft sell, is to allow the music to speak for itself. Then, the music reaches its audience gently over whatever period of time it has value or significance. Not all conversations are best carried out by shouting. This approach assumes an informed, alert and enquiring audience; that is, an audience a musician would wish to have. Simply, the music protects itself, its performer and its audience. 

IV 

Soundscapes continue to surprise, excite, educate and instruct me. They are quite amazing. They have the characteristic of being true to the moment in which they are performed. That is, they honour this key principle: act in accordance with time, place and person. 

Towards the end of the week at the Goethe Institute, Soundscapes were developing in a way which was beginning to alarm me. The audiences in Argentina have been as generous and supportive as any I have known anywhere in the world, and more than most. As the week unfolded its surprises, I began to be concerned that the generosity of the audience was being tested. This is an unfamiliar music, improvised, presented without guarantees, sometimes unpleasant and often very hard to listen at, to and through. It is not a music which of itself would claim to be entertaining. Rather, it presents challenges to both performer and audience. 

I resisted the way in which the Soundscapes were developing, while noticing and acknowledging that this was the way, but went with them. Saturday night was the evening when Soundscapes had moved on, to where you may hear on “Radiophonics”: it was irresistible. 

V 

When, as punters, we buy a ticket to see a musician we often know some of their professional history; we assume a measure of competence and experience, some training (whether formal or informal) and a sufficient ability. 

What may the musician assume of the audience’s training, facility and experience in listening? 

Clearly, there are different qualities of performance. Equally clearly, there are different qualities of listening. Simply, what we hear is the quality of our listening. 

Without attention, we fail to hear what is being played; we hear what we believe is being played. This is automatic listening: we listen AT the music. If our interest is aroused, or attracted, then we may shake hands with the music: we listen TO the music. If we go beyond this, by making the decision to listen THROUGH the music, we invite it into ourselves. Conscious listening is where we stand face to face with music; creative listening is when the music and audience get married - music listens to itself through the ears of the audience, from which it is not apart. 

It is unnecessary, for deeper listening, that we like the music. Actually, it is easier to listen when the music is challenging or unfamiliar: our ears are free of seduction. The practical issue, then, is our attention span. Attention does not develop by accident. The greater our capacity to pay attention, the greater our possibility to enter the world of music. Or, to put this another way, the greater the possibility of the world of music entering us. 

To be a listener, to become a member of an audience, requires as much training as to become a musician. Listening is active, and our instrument is the ears. 

How we use our ears is part of the craft of listening. Music MUST be heard to become real. 

VI 

A musician of any experience is aware, often painfully so, that few audiences cohere to the point of being a unified audience. In any audience, different worlds of listening capacity and hearing competence are present simultaneously. 

The atmosphere which surrounds a performance is a subtle envelope which protects the musical event unfolding within it. The energy which is generated in the performance is contained, and intensifies. Then, the performance may shift and lift, and become a very different quality of event. 

The audience may, or may not, be an audience. An audience is single, a whole body of people using two ears. A dispersed, fractured audience is a crowd. 

Each member of the audience hears their own world of hearing. Within the audience, these different worlds impinge upon each other and interpenetrate. So, in my own solitary deafness, I hear very little of your world of deeper listening. But as it opens to you, it also becomes available to me, and I may find myself suddenly within it. Once I enter this clearer place, I hear with different ears:· actually, I am listening through yours. Then, this world of deeper listening grows stronger from my presence within it. In a sense, my discovery of this world re-creates it, and it continues to be in continuous creation for as long as I am able to remain within it. 

The subtle atmosphere which surrounds a performance is easily damaged. It is maintained by the contributory presence of the audience and performers and, I must say, the muse. (Hence the aphorism: you can't take the muse out of music). Any act which violates the integrity of the performance punctures the atmosphere and prevents the performance from achieving its potential. In our performance culture many violations, small and great - such as unauthorised photography and recording - are Widespread and commonplace. Where the artist has clearly asked the audience to refrain from trying to capture the event and nail it to the earth, bootlegging (however well-intentioned) is a violation. It is not innocent and offers violence to the performance, artist and other members of the audience. The bootlegger, or surreptitious photographer, place themselves outside the performance and the world in which the performance has value. Then, they are no longer present to the performance. This disrupts the atmosphere and limits the possibilities otherwise available. 

Up to a point, the performance is handicapped. Beyond a point, the performance dies. This is written from experience. 

Expectation is inevitable. It is also a prison. It has the characteristic that we neither hear what we expect to hear, nor what is is available to be heard. Unless we are able to hold our expectations lightly, and then drop them, we fail to enter the present moment in which the performance unfolds. If we are fortunate enough to enter this moment, we discover it is the eternal moment in which all performance is present. 

VII 

Those of you kind enough to have read this far may, or not, have a sufficient interest to read much of the large and growing library relating to theories of and commentaries upon performance, the philosophy of music, musical semiotics, the anthropology of music, the psychology of music, the sociology of music, the politics of music, the business of music, the physics of sound, the physiology of hearing, the creation of environmental soundscapes, noise pollution, the function of music, music of different cultures, music sacred and profane, the history of music, music of the conservatory and of the vernacular, even formal musical texts, music criticism and analysis, and textbooks of ear training, harmony and composition. 

I have yet to find, in a wide reading over many years, much which approaches the subtleties of performance which are the focus and concern of my own life as a performer. Very little academic literature, while sometimes sharing the same questions, addresses the finer points of my experience. It is probably impossible to prove a subtle action to (even) an enquiring and sceptical audient. This is because subtle action doesn't “exist” in any easily measurable way, or even “exist” at all. Fortunately it is possible, and much easier, to experience the realities and qualities of performance than to provide proof of them. The experiencing is direct and immediate; it is always available, providing we are available to the performance. 

Guitar Craft, for example, is one approach which. aims to make available direct experience of the musical world to anyone, of whatever level of experience, who is prepared to make an effort to be available to music.

 VIII 

We assume that our artists see things directly and then, through their art, convey to us their insight and their act of seeing. We demand of our artists honesty, and hope for clarity. Their rationalisations and explanations are not as compelling. If any culture is to be healthy, and vital, the opportunity to see through our artists’ eyes and hear through their ears is a necessity. But it is not a necessity that we give attention to how our artists rationalise their seeing. A poet presents their poem, not an essay on what the poem might mean. The listening public who attends live performances may, by consulting their own experience, judge whether any of these remarks resonanate for them. 

These comments are presented by a guitarist and aspiring musician, and I apologise to any who are offended by them. 

IX 

Any culture whose artists are directed or controlled by commercial interests is in mortal danger. 

X 

The people of Argentina have been exceptionally kind to me, far more so than I deserve, and the generality of the Argentinian press have made exceptionally generous comments. There have also been two negative reviews of Soundscape performances, coincidentally both from reviewers who arrived at the theatres accompanied by photographers who were not admitted. 

Sr. Federico Monjeau, the reviewer and lecturer upon contemporary music, reviewed the Monday performance at the Goethe Institute for the Buenos Aires Clarin of Saturday 8th. April. Sr. Monjeau considered that Fripp's “rigidity and control are not at the service of musical impulses” and concluded that “so much discipline and control seem to be an end in itself rather than a way to achieve an innovative music... Even though they may seem different, there is something in these Soundscapes which still resembles the primitive synthesisers of so-called symphonic rock, with those held chords which once seemed justified by a fascination with technology but which today appear unbearably vulgar”. 

Sr. Monjeau kindly and generously overlooks my other many weaknesses. Following the publication of Sr. Monjeau's review we promised to present the public of Buenos Aires with an opportunity to confirm his view, assuming their sufficient interest. The Soundscapes on this record, although five days later in the series, meets this commitment. 

We perceive our perceptions. That is, what we hear is the quality of our listening. We can only understand to the extent of our understanding. Similarly, the reviewer reviews themself. Some critics are able to see into the heart of a performance and present their seeing: objective, impartial, unbiased and clean. These are good friends to the performer. 

XI

These comments were written at the Claymont Mansion, Charles Town, West Virginia, during the fourth Guitar Craft (Application & Assimilation) course, during August 25 - 30th, 1995. 

I have been involved in the Claymont project, in various ways, for nearly 21 years. This property was home to the early Guitar Craft courses, beginning in March 1985, for which I am deeply grateful. Claymont was a great place to make mistakes and an even better place to learn from them. For this I am especially grateful. 

At the final meeting of GC (A&A) IV, at 21.53 local time and shortly before the completion of the course, I announced the formal conclusion of my relationship with Claymont.

Robert Fripp.

For this month’s release, Mr Stormy focuses on the guitar and organ parts played by Robert Fripp and Barry Andrews. 

Taken from the multitrack tapes for the League of Gentlemen album, from recording sessions at Arny’s Shack in December 1980, at the culmination of a year of extensive touring in Europe and North America.

Boy At Piano was not included on the original album, but had been a staple of the live shows. A version was first made available on the live CD Thrang Thrang Gozinbulx, in 1996, and the studio recording was finally released in the Exposures boxed set in 2022.

Sid Smith says: “Hearing Barry Andrews’ trickling Crumar organ figure meshing with Robert Fripp’s rhapsodic guitars, isolated from the accompanying bass and drums parts, makes this much-loved League Of Gentlemen track sound more like a piece of taut minimalism rather than the usual attribution of ‘a second-division touring new wave instrumental dance band’.”

Download: Boy At Piano (Barry and Robert).

Or listen to a preview on the official YouTube channel:

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