09.32
Parford Well Wonder B&B of Joy, Delight & Bliss Arising, Dartmoor.
A King Crimson dream in the night: KC was on stage but I was not fully set up & with almost no monitors, so was unable to hear Adrian if I were playing. Well. King Crimson dreams are rarely enjoyable, and go back at least 32 years.
10.19 Super Audio Mastering, Monks Withecombe.
What are we working on this morning?
Finger of the Master indicates his listening-reflection notes…
Thomas concurs…
Simon has been reconfiguring Noitaroproc Cisum Ylnevaeh Eht, the backwards version of The Heavenly Music Corporation. It is now significantly better than yesterday. We have compared Eno’s original 7.5 ips master to the EQed & tickled 15ips master from Air and, returning to the Eno 7.5ips master, the Master Heyworth has incorporated the additional learning. We are now running the half-speed version which, to The Sidney Smith’s delight, is now working for me as he claimed it might.
Yesterday’s version was powerful but not entirely convincing. This report prompted a response from The Sidney…
Blimey! What do these artists know????
Listen pal, when I was a slip of the man I am today No Pussyfooting played at 16 was just mind-blowing stuff. Nor was it confined to just me and my mates. Recently at a football match, my chum Chris got talking to the bloke next to him and discovered they had a liking for Eno. Turns out he (the blokey) used to listen No Pussyfooting as well AND at 16. We think the 16 craze came about after Eno mentioned it in an interview in the NME (though this is unconfirmed).
F&E backwards was a simple cock-up. F&E 16 was where it was at, baby.
I am humbled. As is usually the case, Sid is correct; we submit, we obey, we follow his bidding.
10.58 The last falling guitar swoops descend into subsonics. A small sprinkling of fairy dust & this is now odds-on to make Sidney a very happy boy. And Chris. And the terraces at Newcastle.
11.25 The Minx has called with the latest reports of young WillyFred; he is already recognised as a Prince of his kind.
11.38 We are now running in a tape…
… marked Fripp & Eno…
…Paris I…
II...
11.42 It sounds like this was the 7.5ips reel on Eno’s Revoxes at the F&E show in the Paris Olympia, with the guitar feeding in for Brian to loop. Now, for the first time since 1975, here it is.
12.09 Six F&E loops. I have probably only heard this once before in my life: 32 years ago in France.
12.18 While music continues at the front, furious e-frenzying continues at the back. The subject of dreams has returned, in an e-exchange with the GC Special Study Group.
i had a powerful dream on my first night at sherborne in 1975, just before the course began & before my 5 other dormitory buddies arrived. my dear Mother & her Sister evie took me to sherborne & dropped me (via the polly tea rooms in marlborough!) and their faces when they saw the spartan conditions of the dormitory they were leaving me in! i have never understood whether the dream was literal, or metaphoric. i’ll let you know if you ask in 2013.
12.22 Looping continues.
12.31 A bright idea? Take these loops & solo over them today. A new F&E album, taking over 32 years to make?
12.44 A professional pal has e-written with a picking enquiry. He aims to learn a hard repetitive cross picking part to play live; in the studio he looped the part. My pal enquires:
In your experience is it better to practice the part slowly but accurately, and gradually increase the tempo with successive practice sessions, or to play the part at the correct tempo from the beginning, fumbling and messing it up as I go?
In reply…
I
use a metronome, as an external arbiter of your practising.
then, you begin at the speed / bpm at which you can play the part accurately. otherwise, you practice the inaccuracies & make them even more firmly entrenched.
then, once you have a reliable tempo established, say 100 bpm, move the click forward to 102 & back to 98 (or even units of 1 bpm). this extends the parameters of your competence. (playing more slowly is often more difficult).
every now & again, set the tempo you are aiming to achieve, say 126, and give it a shot. this will let you know how close you are to achieving your aim.
be realistic: this is likely to take you 3 months.
II
use the side door. that is, if you only practice the piece you are aiming to play at speed, you will limit the development of your picking. what will enable you to achieve your aim is to extend the development of your practising. so, you need other exercises which are (as far as i know) only available in a reliable, tested & researched way within Guitar Craft.
i can introduce you to people who can help, but probably best if i introduce them to you personally to begin. it won’t take very long to introduce, but will take time to incorporate in your playing. i’m still practising them myself!
this may be more than you are prepared or willing to take on.
There are more than one side doors; there is also the back door.
13.09 Re-visiting Evening Star & its soaring guitar statement. I remember this young man, the intensity & yearning of the music clearly belonging to his life at the time. Today, with the distance that time confers, I am impressed by his commitment to follow where the trajectory of his life took him.
15.12 We have 3 different masters of An Index of Metals, including the original Eno 7.5 ips, the 15ips taken from it, and another from a later era. Each sound different in the details. Which shall we use?
And on the Guestbook…
The evil eye: Posted by Mechkov on September 26, 2007
Possible cure: should time and inclination be on your side, stroll over, shake a hand and say "hello". people will love you for it. Short of time and inclination, a wave and smile can work wonders.Short of time, a smile is rarely seen as anything bad. Or am I being naive again...
Firstly, naïve isn’t the best word.
Secondly, the (no doubt) well-meaning Mr. Mechkov is clearly uninformed / unaware of my various strategies in attempting to intentionally engage with audiences on 4 continents, in all manner of contexts, situations formal & informal, professional & personal, on & off-line, public & private, and other, for almost 4 decades. And why should he be? And if he is not, why recommend his courses of action? As a brief information-update, I have tested all of his suggested strategies.
Thirdly, I’m not sure what cure is available & which ailment it seeks to remedy.
Fourthly, popularity is not an aim of mine, neither do I seek unpopularity. Why would anyone seek popularity? The answer to this question tells us much about ourselves; and better, when we have the answer, not to attribute our motivations to others. Popularity can be readily achieved by giving people what they want. This comes with a train of unintended consequences (note: this is written from practical experience, resulting from applying & testing all Mr. Mechkov’s suggestions and more). Better to act on what one sees to be right, and accept the consequences & repercussions that follow. Right action generates right repercussions, these usually more apparent in the long term. If we act rightly, the repercussions tend to be manageable; these may include popularity, unpopularity & disinterest. None have relevance. What is inherent in right action supports us through the lot of it.
Fifthly, Mr. Mechkov’s suggestions come with an implied imperative – do this! His implication is, that although I may not accept his suggestions, I really should. But a problem with removing my capacity to say no to his counsel of actions, neither am I able to say yes. And if I can’t say yes, I have to say no.
Sixthly, if the aim of a wave & a smile is to work wonders, it undermines the generosity & warmth that accompanies a freely-offered wave & smile extended in goodwill, given without concern for personal benefit; and comes close to manipulation.
I hope Mr. Mechkov forgives me:
1. I find his suggestions insulting. He assumes that in over 48 years of playing in public, 40 professionally, I have not concerned myself in engaging with audiences / the interested public; neither learnt anything in doing / not-doing so.
2. His tone is patronising.
I note that our interests in performer / audient interaction are inverse. Mr. Mechkov addresses the personal; my interest is engaging the impersonal, that part of us where we are already the same person.
So, if we are already (rather more than) connected, why & how is it so easy to overlook our essential unity, so “difficult” to connect with each other? One answer: the demand our egotism exerts to gain acknowledgement & strength, at the expense of the essential & the real. Anyway, why bother about fancy ideas when we can wander about shaking hands & taking photos? Puffing up our vanity & sense of self-worth? We have the right to be acknowledged! We have the right to demand attention! And I only wanted to say hello & be thanked for being here! Who does he think put him there, anyway? Now give me the attention I deserve – and I have the right to attention! All you have to do is smile & wave & shake my hand & have your photo taken with me – and then you can sign it to your dearest & oldest friend – little me! That’s easy enough for you to do, after all! Don’t bother about the other people – they’re the time consumers! You think you have the right not to? That’s not a right! What a jerk!
If for a moment an aspirant hand-shaker & photographing / viddying / recording audient (even when they can’t be seen! even when they only do such a little bit of it that they can have no possible effect on anything at all! even when it’s only one autograph! only one photograph! only one question about that show in 1973 when I was in the 3rd. row wearing the t-shirt! when you looked up and saw me!) were to pause & consider this, they will not be persuaded otherwise. If they were, they would remain unable to direct their behaviour in accordance with requests / House Rules (why is it that policing & security staff at performances are a growth industry?).
It is not possible, when we are in The Basement, to move outside the rigid & determined parameters of our entrenched opinions, key to which is our right to do anything we want – because we have the right! Movement is only possible when we find ourselves, mysteriously, outside of The Basement, even for just a moment. Then, we see other people as-if for the first time; there may even be enough light available to see other opinions & views. This is a long distance from developing respect for those other-views; a much longer distance from being able to act in accordance with respectful-disagreement; and much much further from being able to enter the experiencing of others.
For now, please, anyone interested in being part of the performance conventions referred to above, I am clearly not a performer for you; and certainly not one that you want to know personally. If impersonal is not what you need, please give your patronage / matronage to artists grateful to receive it, and take no further interest in anything I do.
Now, I return my attention to the work in hand, popularity rising with every Diary-reading visitor to these pages.
16.26 Heroic work by The Master & An Index Of Metals is about to be re-run from Eno’s original 7.5 ips master, re-vibrated from listening to the 15 ips EQd master.
Other e-arisings: several invitations to attend personal & business meetings while performing in the US with The LCG. Mostly, we are in & out of a town on the same day and, travelling apart, my functioning as aspirant musician & GC Instructor to an ensemble of Guitar Craft students is more than I can handle already. A feature of touring life, more so in the past than now, is whenever KC / RF visits a town, all manner of past acquaintances appear, knowing that our / my only reason for being in town is to visit with them socially; and perhaps have business meetings as well. The lighter the acquaintanceship, the greater the demand for attention; the deeper the friendship, the greater the absence of external communication, and the higher the level of support.
17.07 An Index Of Metals fades away, carrying with it a reverberation of terror.
What’s that about? wrote a musician pal to me, after hearing it not long after its release. He was not asking for musical analysis; his enquiry was more what on earth did you think you were doing? Another correspondent, in the same period, wrote that when they first heard it, their response was – not; but a year later, he came to believe that Index would shake the world. Today, I might respond well, the world is still here - but it never got a proper release in America!
17.55 Parford Well.
Back & off to…
17.58 Sandy Park Inn.
The walk here is short, with views over Dartmoor I…
II…
Yer tiz!...
The barlady-person is not in attendance this evening, so the builder-lads in the bar have been telling jokes rude enough to make even an old road-codger like me draw a sharp intake of breath.
Here ahead of time for dinner with The Master Heyworth, Nicky Heyworth & Thomas, a pint of beerless beer & a shot of lime cordial, some computing is underway. Desktop…
22.05 Exceptionally good dinner-company.
Back to practising on Ben Crowe’s new RF Signature model. Now, winding down.
