Robert Fripp on Technicality vs. Mastery

Kamil Kisiel

Power User
https://reverb.com/ca/news/interview-robert-fripp-bacons-archive

A really great and insightful interview, originally conducted in 1991, with one of my biggest all time guitar heroes and influences.

This part made me laugh out loud:

Then we went down the road and bought some Marshall amps. I walked in, and we wanted two bass stacks—I used a bass stack as well—and the money on that was a bit more serious. I said to the manager of the shop, "What discount will you give for cash?" Opened the briefcase, said, "This is so that you know I'm talking seriously." And so we did the deal, the deal was agreed, and we had the guitar equipment we needed.​
 
In terms of the developed technical capacity of American guitar players—and we could all put a few names on that—some of them are great musicians and some aren't. Do I consider the advance in overall technical standards to be worthwhile? Well, it hasn't affected the musicianship or the musicality, but there is a greater capacity. I would say that the potential in that is exciting, but unless the musicality is developed, then it's still going to be as useless, whether you can play or not. - Robert Fripp

I agree and I see another title: capacity versus musicality
 
Guy is STOOPID smart.

Edit: Since I'm trying to keep up with my daughter (who is rapidly exceeding my ability to keep up with her education...at 13 years old)...this phrase resonated: "in the pentatonic scale, the mathematics are derived from the Fibonacci series"

Heavy sigh...

-Destroying brain cells one bottle of Bordeaux at a time.

R
 
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Guy is STOOPID smart.

Edit: Since I'm trying to keep up with my daughter (who is rapidly exceeding my ability to keep up with her education...at 13 years old)...this phrase resonated: "in the pentatonic scale, the mathematics are derived from the Fibonacci series"

Heavy sigh...

-Destroying brain cells one bottle of Bordeaux at a time.

R
That quote also stood out to me, too.

I don't know the mathematics he is referencing, but the Fibonacci sequence/series is pretty simple:

https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/fibonacci-sequence.html

It's also closely tied with the recently mentioned Golden Ratio.
 
The pentatonic scale is based on the harmonic series, which is related to the Fibonacci sequence.

Suppose you start at A440 Hz. The first harmonic is A880 (2x) and the second one is at 1320 (3x). If you shift the 3rd harmonic down an octave to put it in the same octave as the original A you get 660 Hz (3/2x) which is a perfect fifth above, an E. You keep going this way and you get the 5/4 ratio, which is your major 3rd, etc and you will end up with a pentatonic scale after 5 steps.

Kind of late right now and I’m typing on my phone so it might be a bit incoherent :) but if this topic interests you it’s covered a long with a lot of other cool stuff about guitar in Miles Okazaki’s book “fundamentals of guitar”, which approaches guitar playing unlike any other book I’ve read.
 
Thanks for this. The more I read of Fripp, the more I agree with his insights.

In Jr High, I remember buying an lp of Andy Summers with Robert Fripp, "I Advance Masked". After being blown away by that, I revisited his work with Bowie and Peter Gabriel where I was unaware of Fripp's collaboration. Then I explored Crimson.

I may never play like him, but I enjoy his musical vocabulary and execution. My only wish was thst I was able to attend one of his MusiKraft seminars. Hopefully someone will carry the fire forward on those concepts.
 
I do like Robert Fripp...not trying to make a comparison...but it is Adrian Belew that as an artist, is so dam interesting!
 
I do like Robert Fripp...not trying to make a comparison...but it is Adrian Belew that as an artist, is so dam interesting!
I like them both for entirely different reasons. It’s amazing that they were able to be in King Crimson together.
 
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