A Preface to Guitar Craft
by Robert Fripp

II

We have two immediate concerns. Firstly, being available and open to music when the musical current turns on. Secondly, having sufficient skill to place at the service of the musical impulse. If we meet both these concerns, we may realise the aim of the musician, which is to be an instrument directly played by music. There are three factors involved in this: the musician, the music, and the musician's craft. The craft is the means of bringing the music and musician together.

The first concern, availability and openness, is a measure of our alertness. This state brings with it in-touchness, and a contact with the moment. This first concern is the responsibility of the musician. Music is well able to take care of itself. Music is always present, but we are not. The second concern, the craft, is also the musician's responsibility to acquire. Fortunately, help is available from the craft itself.

A craft is a source of techniques, experience and information which is available to the musician. A living tradition of craft is a source of power which supports us in our efforts. Some traditions of musical craft are more apparent than others. Some are in Turkey, and very hard to find. Some are next door, even though they may have come from Turkey. When we begin to look for help from a school of craft we may be surprised to find how close to the school we already were, but failed to recognise it. Generally, one has a personal introduction to someone involved in a particular tradition. This may or may not be the tradition for us. If not, it will lead to another introduction and another tradition. When we find the craft which is right for us, we know. We resonate. The experience of this is unmistakable. Surprisingly, it seems that the craft has been waiting for us, even anticipating our arrival.

At a certain point all crafts are the same craft, but up to that point each craft has its own identity and specialised work to undertake. The visibility of any particular school of craft depends upon the nature of its work and the conditions of the culture it works within. The aim of each craft is to help the aspirant reach the point of unity within crafts. At this point where craft and crafts are inseparable, musician and craft are inseparable. Also, all musicians are one musician. This is the creative world.

If we are very fortunate we receive instruction from a craftsman who embodies their tradition. This is not necessary, only good fortune. All that is necessary is that our instructor has greater experience than us. If we place ourselves at the direction of a craft instructor, the instruction we receive may surprise us. A Sufi drummer playing with the Whirling Dervishes of Konya told me, over breakfast in New York, of his beginning in craft. He prepared himself for three years to play his drum. Then, after three years of preparation, he took up his drum and began to play. One Guitar Craft student has been practising a right hand exercise for 1,000 days in preparation to taking up their guitar at the New York course in August 1989. This is a sound approach, but not for all. It is unlikely to be found in a commercial teaching practice.

A craft demands of us alertness and openness to the moment, that we may respond to the promptings of music. Often, the aspiring musician is too busy impressing themself with hot licks and fiery sprays of modest invention to hear our friend music knocking gently at the door. Or, lulled by our New Age minimalistic, environmentally low-impact, synthesised mood enhancement, we are too dull to hear when music calls. Alertness and openness are closely related, but approached by different techniques. We find alertness in the moment, and openness by letting go of the unnecessary.

Skill is holding onto the necessary, and it has its own techniques.To develop skill, our second concern, we learn what is necessary. To learn we must be alert and open. The challenges of developing skill make demands of us which generate an alert state. So, we may approach our first concern through our second concern. Necessarily, we approach our second concern, the acquisition of craft, through our first concern.

But, before we begin these various techniques we begin where we are and as we are.

*

When one enters the process of craft, one begins by doing nothing. A common fault is to try and change aspects of our playing, or personal characteristics, which we find unsatisfactory. This is an error. Instead, we do nothing to the best of our ability. A good beginning to the practice of doing nothing is to sit for half an hour. As we sit, doing nothing, we watch ourselves doing nothing. We engage our attention and discover for ourselves how much is actually going on. After ten minutes we will notice our body twitching gently, moving its position, and discover novel points of tension and discomfort. Our feet will be asleep, the lower back throb with discomfort, the neck lock into a worthy effort to do nothing. All manner of interests and concerns will present themselves to the mind. We tour the world and return to discover our irritation with this silly exercise. Of course I can do nothing for half an hour, so why should I bother?

Doing nothing is very hard.

If we persevere and look at our points of discomfort, we discover the tensions which lock us into this discomfort. In time, as we become more experienced in this, we discover particular attitudes locked into these points of tension. Certain postures the body adopts may hold emotionally charged events of long ago. When we give our points of tension permission to leave, we give the corresponding attitudes and emotional experiences permission to leave as well. If these are part of who we are, and essential to our nature, nothing is lost. If they are unnecessary to us, we will experience their presence as tension and the release of them as relaxation.

The same technique, of engaging the attention, is fundamental to all work in craft. Attention is the tool in developing the efficient operation of both hands. We observe, impartially and without criticism, what it is that our hands are doing. Then, what we are thinking about while our hands are doing what they are doing. Then, what we are feeling while our hands are doing what they are doing. We gather information about this creature we inhabit, and in whose life we are becoming increasingly involved.

Impartial observation, without seeking to change anything, changes nothing. It changes everything. Before, we were a creature locked into an habitual manner of playing: flying fingers, wild facial grimaces, leg pumping the ground in a semblance of rhythm. Now, with sympathy, we look at this remarkable animal, locked into a mass of opinions, assumptions and attitudes being enacted upon an innocent guitar. Looking at this wild thing, we discover elements of why it behaves in this peculiar manner. The fingers flail because at age twelve we believed this indicated achievement. The exagerrated motions of the right hand came from a rock video featuring a groovy, but inept, dude. The hot licks put us immediately within an imaginary world of cheering and loving fans, just like the movies.

We simply look at this creature in the movies. We watch it, without judging its fantasies or excitement. A moment ago, we were this creature. Nothing has changed, but everthing has changed. If we wish to meet the first concern, of alertness and openness, we have to give up the movies. Welet go of our adolescent image of what constituted a groovy dude. We give up our want of excitement. In return, we get more of ourself. We abandon our imaginary notions of what we want to be, our many inventions of ourself built up over time. What is left behind is who we are.

Alertness is being where we are, openness is dropping where we are not. Our imaginary notions block the channel between ourself and music. Dropping them clears the channel. Silt will build up again, and in different ways, but now we know for ourselves what it means to have the channel open. This is not always exciting, but it is very satisfying.

Then, we get excited. The channel is open, music is blasting through and - the current turns off. Where did it go? Despair, hopelessness, abject depression. We have moved from a world of impartiality to a world of subjective involvement. We have been sucked into the state of thrilldom. We are no longer available to place our skills, such as they are, at the service of music.

In the early years of our musical life, when the current turns on the power of the experience may be overwhelming. It may keep us in the music business for up to seven years, despite all the horrors of the professional life. If we are fortunate, one day the current turns on again. Then, with a little more experience we allow it to flow and follow where it leads. We learn that if we let go of flowing music, it continues to flow. Maybe not today, but maybe next week or next month. Or maybe today. This is craft information, but widely available to the public. The work of some schools of craft is to disseminate craft ideas through the media.

But there are few guarantees in the creative life. If there were, the life would not be creative. A craft discipline cannot guarantee that music will fly by and take charge of our hands, but it can introduce some small guarantees to the hands of the musician. Discipline is the capacity to be effectual in time. One gradually acquires discipline through the practice of commitment. These commitments are to be honored without exception. This takes years of practice, and one begins by training the body to accept and respond to direction. This training of the body begins with the practice of doing nothing.

June 25, 1989

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