Reply-To: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk Sender: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk Precedence: bulk From: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk To: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk Subject: Discipline #59 Discipline, Number 59 Monday, 5 October 1992 Today's Topics: Re: Discipline #58 Levin and Email? New live set! Levin on Us RED Transcription Possible video source Fripp Interview, part 2 [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: urgent at elea dot umd dot edu (Gen) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 14:03:46 -0400 Subject: Re: Discipline #58 I'd just like to mention that the two Roches albums Fripp is credited with producing (see: Fripp discography, Discipline #57) can easily be construed as collaborations (tasty, tasty Fripp solo's abound!) Belew, Bruford, and Levin only appear on _Keep on Doing_. ta ta-- D. Gent [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 13:22:38 CDT From: david at gca-prism dot com (David Oskardmay) Subject: Levin and Email? Paolo reproduced from _Musician_ interview with Levin: > shifts with equal fascination from discussing the joys...of electronic >mail, to boxing, to how overwhelming he found his visit to the Rodin...in >Paris. So, what's his Email address? :-) later, david [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 13:26:29 BST From: Toby Howard Subject: New live set! Seen advertised in this month's Q magazine: 'The Great Deceiver' -- a 4 CD box set + booklet covering King Crimson live 1972--74, remastered from Fripp's own collection. Due out October/November. Can anyone supply further details? Toby [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Sat, 3 Oct 92 13:31:47 BST From: Toby Howard Subject: Levin on Us If, like me, you enjoy Tony Levin's bass and stick playing, check out Peter Gabriel's new album, "Us". Aprt from it being a wonderful album in its own right, Tony plays beautifully throughout. Toby [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: chuck at cs dot unsw dot oz dot au (Mark Andrew Hawling) Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 18:25:11 +1000 Subject: RED Transcription Though somebody might have a use for this... "Red" by Robert Fripp as heard on the album RED This is an arrangement of RED. It is arranged here for guitar and bass. On the album there is considerable doubling of various lines to thicken it up. This is the opening guitar melody. ---------------------------------15-17-19------- --------------------13-15-17--19---------------- ----------13-14--16----------------------------- -13-15-16--------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------15-17-19------- -----------------12-13-15-16--18---------------- -------12-14-15--------------------------------- -14-16------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------15-17-18------- --------------------13-15-17--19---------------- ----------13-14--16----------------------------- -13-15-16--------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ The bass for the opening is: -8--11-10---8---12---11-12-14-16-16---- -9--12-10---10--14---------------14---- -9--12-12---11--15--------------------- ---------------------------------0-0--- -7--7--10---9---7----7---11------------ -9--8--11---9---9----8---12------------ -10-8--11---7---10---8---12------------ --------------------------------------- -8--11-10---8---12---11-12-14-15-15---- -9--12-10---10--14--------------------- -9--12-12---11--15--------------------- ---------------------------------0--0-- Main Verse Riff: ---------------------------------- -3-1-3-1-3-1-3--1--3b(4)r3--1----- ------------------------------2--- ---------------------------------- --------------------------------0- This gets transposed to positions 1 step up and 1 1/2 steps up. Fripp also plays at the end of the riff sometimes a "sick" sounding note which is: (i) and (ii) s -0---------0------------------- -3/5-------5b(6)--------------- ------------------------------- So the 1st verse is played if we call the main riff E , the transposed riffs of 1 and 1 1/2 steps F# and G respectvely and including the "sick" notes (i) and (ii) we get the sequence... E E F# E (i) G G E (i) then 1st chorus 2nd time through it is.... E E (i) F# (ii) E (i) then 2nd chorus The bass drones these notes as roots for this section playing octaves for accents. Chorus: This is played twice: guitar free rhythm -0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0---!-0-------------------------- -13-12-13-12-13-12-13-12--!-1-------------------------- -14-13-14-13-14-13-14-13--!-2-------------------------- --------------------------!---------------------------- --------------------------!-0-------------------------- bass s s s s --------------------------!-----------------7/(8)\(7)-- --------------------------!---6/(7)\(6)---------------- -7--6--7--6--7--6--7--6---!---------------------------- -0------------------------!-0-----------0-0------------ then for the 1st chorus play these chords (free rhythm) -0---!--0---!--10---!--10--------- -4---!--4---!--12---!--12--------- -----!------!-------!------------- bass -----!------!-------!------------- -2---!-5----!-5-----!--5-4-3--3--- -----!------!-------!------------- note that these are just the position for fingers. the rhythms are up to you. The last bar has that little descending riff to the C which is played for that bar. For the second chorus -0---!--0---!--0----!--0---------- -4---!--4---!--9----!--9---------- -----!------!-------!------------- bass -----!------!-------!------------- -----!------!--4----!-4-2--2------ -2---!--0---!-------!------------- -----!------!-------!------------- The sort of Bridge section after this. ------------------!-----------------!------------------- ------------------!-3-2-3-2-3-2-3-2-!-6-4-6-4-6-4-6-4-6- --2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-!-----------------!------------------- ------------------!-----------------!------------------- bass ------------------!-----------------!------------------- ------------------!-----------------!-7----------------- -0----------------!-6---------------!------------------- ------------------!-----------------!------------------- Middle Break The chords for the middle break are: Hit each as many times as indicated... 20X 32X 3X 5X 24X 16X 1X 1X ----!------!-----!------!-----!------!------!-0---- -3--!--3---!--2--!--2---!--5--!--3---!--3---!-3---- -3--!--3---!--0--!--1---!--4--!--4---!--4---!-4---- ----!------!-----!------!-----!------!------!------ 32X 3X 5X 24X 8X 2X 1X ------!-----!------!-----!------!------!-0---- --3---!--2--!--2---!--5--!--3---!--3---!-3---- --3---!--0--!--1---!--4--!--4---!--4---!-4---- ------!-----!------!-----!------!------!------ The middle break has the baseline.... ------------------------------------------------ -------1-0----------1-0--------4-4-2------------ -3-0-1-----1--3-0-1-----1--3-4-------0-0-3-4---- ---------------------!-------------------------- ---------------0-2---!--------------------0-2--- -4-2---2-0---2-------!--------1-0--------------- -----0-----0---------!--3-0-1-----1-3-0-1------- ------------------------------------------------ -3-3-5-----------------------0-2---------------- -------4-4-2---------4-2---2-------------------- -------------0-0-3-4-----0---------------------- Then for the rest of the song these various sections are played oveer again. You can work that out from the recording. You will have to work out the rhythms for the bass and the chords because notating them here would be stupid to even attempt and not worth the time. I hope this is fairly arrangement is fairly understandable. If anybody has any questions about the piece or any corrections (there are bound to some) feel free to mail me at chuck at cs dot unsw dot oz dot au Mark Hawling [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Sun, 4 Oct 92 17:21:42 EDT From: sale5312 at mary dot cs dot fredonia dot edu (Marty Saletta) Subject: Possible video source Since I posted about possessing the two ever-elusive Crimson videos (1982 and 1984) several people asked where they could get them. I finally found the info on the place I got them from, and also managed to lose some of the addresses of the people who asked. Here's the info that maybe everyone interested can use. As a disclaimer, I'll note that I'm not affiliated with this company in any way, except for being a satisfied customer. Many moons ago someone on the net sent this address to me as a source for videos, and I'm happy to return the favor. Spectrum Music Video P.O. Box 1128 Norristown, PA 19404 U.S.A. Phone: (215) 887-0510 I'm taking this information from my original receipt for the Crimson 1982 video, dated April 9, 1988, so the info may not be 100% accurate. I remember them sending me their catalog last year, and seeing the 1984 video in stock, but as a Japanese import for around $54 US I think. From the receipt, I paid $18+$2 shipping for the video- not a bad deal. I believe you can call or write for a free catalog, which is quite large and has many hard-to-find videos. Someone also mentioned the trouble finding any Crimson CDs here in the states. I've been to several major record stores in New York City, Toronto, and Buffalo in the past year or two and the Crimson sections in just about every store was rather dry. One or two CDs,not much. I've never seen any of the definitive-edition CDs of the 1981-1984 Crimson outside of Toronto. Funny thing about this is that the Fripp sections are usually near complete. Heck, in a few stops I can even find every Bruford solo CD. The Frame by Frame box-set is available in several places, and I've seen it priced from $50 all the way up to $85 US. Did CD stores get burned by having their current stock replaced by the "new and improved" definitive-edition copies and just give up? Cheers! Marty -- Marty Saletta "Take what I say Fredonia State University in a different way, sale5312 at mary dot cs dot fredonia dot edu and it's easy to say that ...{rutgers,ucbvax}!sunybcs!mary!sale5312 this is all confusion" -Yes [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Mon, 5 Oct 92 12:07:35 BST From: Toby Howard Subject: Fripp Interview, part 2 Robert Fripp, interviewed by Dave Mandl [[[ Interview conducted on February 5, 1991 - originally appeared in Reflex magazine). PLEASE DON'T re-post this interview onto the net, or anywhere else, electronic or other. Thanks for your cooperation. -- Toby ]]] [ START OF PART TWO ] DM: What do you think of the idea of "World Music"? Is the term becoming meaningless? The world is becoming so much smaller, and parts of the world that were seen as "exotic" in the past seem much closer now--it seems that there was more of a distinction before (like the separation between rock and non-rock that I suggested before). Do you think this is all changing now? RF: I first heard what we call World Music around 1975-76. Now, in my subsequent listening, part of what I would call World Music would be Thomas Tallis, sixteenth century England. Which to me is not far removed from Japanese classical Koto playing. Since I'm the character that I am, with very broad interests in music, I welcome the term "World Music" because a greater diversity of sound and formal approaches of music becomes available to the ordinary person. So, in 1972 you didn't have access to that palette. Now you do. Now, Javanese and Balinese gamelan are not strange stuff. My concern is that the formal contribution of America, which is in rock and jazz, is not somehow being revitalized. Something is perhaps missing in terms of our body of music, so we have to--not quite steal--to me it indicates there's a poverty in our own culture. Well, that's fair enough, fine. DM: So you think it's a good thing? RF: By and large, yes. DM: Just a natural cycle. Things are drying up here, so we'll just look elsewhere for new ideas, inspiration? RF: Yes. If your own music isn't setting you on fire, you tend to look elsewhere. And I would suggest one practical reason why this might be: In 1968 and 1978, the record industry was _the_ growth industry above all others. And the common cultural musical product available to listeners in America is governed and decided by a very small number of people--it's called "format." It's like Hollywood movies, it's like American television. DM: And radio. RF: Sure. I would suggest that if you wanted emotional fulfillment or life, some kind of experience, you're not going to get it as readily available; you have to go look. You're going to find it in rock clubs, you're going to find it in jazz clubs. You're not going to find it on radio, television, or on records very easily. So the obvious thing is you look somewhere else. You don't look to your own cultural product. So for me, that would be a large explanation for the interest in so-called World Music. What you then get, and I think this is what you're suggesting, World Music becomes something which is merchandised and packaged, and restricted in the same way. But, at least now you do have a whole body of music which is available and artists travelling internationally--the WOMAD festival in England was a very new thing in its day. So by and large, I think its a good thing. DM: So you think that in general, people will always get itchy and look for new things, new places to find new inspiration and ideas. RF: I think how it goes it this: Music tends to move in seven-year cycles. '56: Presley, rock 'n' roll; '63: Beatles; '70: progressive, psychedelic; '77: punk/new wave; '84: on one hand, New Music, on the other, World Music; 1991: something is going to happen, we don't know. But there is a need for something new, which as a musician I have a sense that something is about to emerge. I can only trust my musician's bones. DM: Any idea what it might be? RF: No idea, other than: when it appears, it will be quite new, and we'll say "Where did that come from," and then, immediately as it's appeared, we'll say, "Well, that was obvious, it had to happen like that." There'll be this sense of inevitability. Before the Beatles, in England, as a young musician playing covers of Cliff Richards and The Shadows, you knew it had run out of steam, but we didn't know what was going to happen next. Then, one year later, there were The Beatles. How could that not have happened? "She Loves You": it _had_ to be like this. So I think people that listen require a nourishment from their music. After a period of time, it runs out, and they begin to look for more nourishment, whether it's within their own culture or coming from somewhere else. DM: Without even realizing it. It just happens. RF: Yeah. You don't think, Let me consult another culture for musical satisfaction. And there'll always be characters who lead the way: Allen Fried with rock 'n' roll, Andy Dunkley was a DJ in London at the end of the sixties who'd always say: "You should listen to this. You should listen to this." And you have these characters whose antennae [tune in] to the currents, and there'll be a character in New York who says later this year, "We should be listening to this." DM: Which of those revolutions you mentioned was the most exciting to you? RF: They're all exciting. In England, when I first heard--I was ten--Elvis Presley and Scotty Moore, Little Richard--Jerry Lee Lewis! I couldn't believe it! [Lets out a scream] And at ten and eleven I'm not going to articulate what it was. DM: It's probably still hard. RF: Then, when the Beatles appeared--[screams again]--it was the same. And then when I was part of that particular movement--[scream]--it was alive. And then when I came to live in New York in 1977, and there was punk and new wave, it was alive! So, it's always that sense of, one has come to life with this music. It's always that feeling of being alive. DM: You were one of the few people from the "progressive rock" or "art rock" world who grabbed on to what was good in punk/new wave and used it, did something with it. A lot of the others just fell by the wayside, disappeared. You seem to have seen it pretty early on-- RF: It's a question of what nourishes you in music, what is alive. In terms of eclecticism, musical form is secondary. The sense of being alive in that creative moment is the primary experience. Now, as a guitarist working, making the transition from 1969 and its formal aftermath, and 1977, there was one formal characteristic which you had to learn in order to play that music with those musicians, and it had to do with time and timing. Firstly, where you place your note in relationship to the beat moved from just behind the beat to exactly on top of the beat [imitates metronomic punk beat]. That was to do with timing; the second part of it was the actual tempo was faster. And unless you grasped that formal expression of how music was reflecting that vitality in that period, you were not with that movement. DM: You've been producing records for as long as you've been playing on them (though your production work has received less attention than your work as a musician/composer). What do you think makes a good producer, or a well-produced record? RF: There's an American approach to production which is quite different >from the European. In America, the producer is the ally and the extension of the record company. The producer is the man who will guarantee the record company that they will have this product to this budget regardless of what the artist does. And if the artist is a problem, they'll make it without them. The producer is more or less an expression of the record company's intentions. DM: And it will sound more or less within the parameters that the record company wants? RF: That's right. The European approach, certainly as far as I'm concerned, is that the producer is the employee of the musician. Quite clear distinction. My approach to production is: This is an album which reflects the musician, and the producer should be invisible to all intents and purposes. DM: A midwife. RF: Yes. The producer enables this to happen, as far as possible. And to do that is very hard. A good producer is as hard to find as a good performing and recording artist, and I am not, let me say, putting myself in that category. But to me it's quite clear that the record is not my record, as producer. It's the musician's record. And some of the producers I've worked with it's quite clear that the artist is the excuse for them to make _their_ record. Quite clear. DM: A lot of producers working with bands see the studio as their instrument, and the roles are almost completely reversed: the final product is theirs, and the musicians are helping them deliver it. RF: But recording an album is a process, it's dynamic. You can't guarantee the end result. If you _do_ guarantee the end result, it's going to be dead. If you say "This is what's going to happen," the end is given. There's no process. It is not creative. A creative event, by definition, involves something new, so it's not going to be format, it's not going to be playing by numbers. So, you may notice that I don't produce many chart-breaking albums. The album should reflect the artist and mirror them, mirror the music they're playing. The Keith Tippet/Andy Shepard album, I'm very proud of my work on it, because you can't see or hear me. There's no producer in the way, so the music is transparent. one hundred percent live and improvised. They didn't talk, they didn't say "What key should we play in?" DM: How do you see your role in a situation like that? There are no overdubs, very little processing, or Production with a capital "P." RF: Quality of recording, enabling the process to keep moving, discriminating and feedback, so if the musician says "Is this happening?" you say yes or no. "Is that any good?" Yes or no. And then mixing. But mixing it in such a way that the proportions and the geometry of the event are mirrorred in the sound. And you can't draw that up on a graph, you can't read that out on an oscilloscope, you have to use the seat of your pants and your bones. If your back tingles, you know it's right. For me mixing is a visceral event, and when a certain geometry and a certain architecture in sound falls into place, there's a resonance which you know is right. When a group works together, a lot of the most effective creative work is not functionally expressed. In other words, you have one character sitting in the room, present in a certain kind of way, and they may not be seeming to do very much. For example, the way Eno works. Eno may not be doing very much. Good. A good producer will do as little as possible. But it doesn't mean that the contribution is not as much as a person who appears to be physically busy. DM: Did you ever use the Oblique Strategies [oracle cards] when you worked with Eno? RF: Actually, no. When I worked with Eno and Bowie on _Heroes,_ they'd pull out Oblique Strategies, but I can't remember actually using Oblique Strategies in my work with Eno. It's quite possible that he pulled them out or he had them going-- DM: unbeknownst to you-- RF: but I can't recall actually following Oblique Strategies. The difference in approach is this: Eno doesn't have a background in musical thinking. His background is in the fine arts. And his set of procedures is different. His set of procedures is not as formally defined as a set of procedures which a musician would use. Which is one reason why Eno is very refreshing to work with. Musicians tend to know what they're doing, and sometimes that's terrible. So Eno's approach would break up the associations which a musician would use, and because I'm the character that I am as a musician, I was very happy to work with that way of doing things. DM: He wouldn't be inclined to say "Wait a minute, you can't play that chord there . . . " RF: I once said that to Eno, actually, on a chord which came out on _My Life in the Bush of Ghosts._ And he was very distressed that I told him "You can't use that chord." To my thinking, the chord was not a musical chord, because I was thinking musically.. Eno had a different approach, not governed by musical thinking; in his parameters, "I can play any notes I like in this chord." DM: Do you ever wish that you could shake some your pre-conceived ideas as a trained musician? Do you ever feel that they restrict you from trying things that "aren't right"? RF: I'm torn between not knowing enough and knowing too much. So, I hope that I know enough to be useful, and not enough to get in the way. But the player in me, if an idea is getting in the way--not blossoming--the player in me rejects it. Because if you're playing music which has a formal satisfaction, there's an ease of playing, however difficult the music might be, and the player in me recognizes that there's something wrong with the idea. [ END ] [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] To join this group or have your thoughts in the next issue, please send electronic mail to Toby Howard at the following address: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk The views expressed in discipline are those of the individual authors only.