Robert Fripp Quotations

If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not?

A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable and always unacceptable.

The perception of the audience is the interesting part. If the audience doesn't hear what is going on, is it going on or not?

There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake.

According to USA today, the average length of an attention span of a man in America is 23 minutes.

To me, Bill's musical heart is in Earthworks, in the jazz they are playing, in the acoustic kit.

So, you can set up an orchestra down this end of the railway station playing one particular area, and simultaneously at the other end something completely different going on. And in the middle they meet, or not, depending.

Linguistic philosophers continue to argue that probably music is not a language, that is in the philosophical debate. Another point of view is to say that music is a very profound language.

Being a professional musician doesn't mean you spend 12 hours a day playing music. It means you spend up to 12 hours a day taking care of business, dealing with litigation, with the various characters who've stolen your interests, or fending off hostile lawsuits from former members of the band.

If an apprentice does not hear what a master hears, is then that quality not present in the music? Yes and no. In the world in which the apprentice lives no.

Even within the band, if I cannot manage to persuade the members of what I see to be the next course of action, how do you expect the group to deal with the expectations of thousands of people. It is not possible.

I recommend my students not to be professional unless they really have to be. I tell them, 'If you love music, sell Hoovers or be a plumber. Do something useful with your life.'

The quality of artistry is the capacity to assume innocence at will, the quality of experiencing innocence as if for the first time.

What is necessary is possible, what we want is expensive. What is unnecessary is unlikely.

My life as a professional musician is a joyless exercise in futility.

In terms of an identity, an identity reflects an individuality, by definition. And, if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you can't name it, it means you don't recognize it.

I'd say that what we hear is the quality of our listening.

Music can be transformative, utterly transformative. The act of music is utterly transformative.

I'm not really interested in music. Music is just a means of creating a magical state.

I couldn't concentrate on music. So I made the choice to give up my career as a musician in the frontline to deal with the business.

The spoken form is in fact a very restrained representation of what is possible in the musical language.

But above that, most mature adults can hold their attention on something for 45 minutes, whether they like it or not. But above that requires training.

Now, if King Crimson accepts responsibility for innovating its own tradition, you can't accept responsibility for the audience. And there is an enormous tangible weight of expectation, which comes from an audience attending a King Crimson concert.

And if you are playing in several meters at once, there has to be a - not a rigid - but there definitely has to be a reference to a common pulse in the band.

However, in modern conceptual frameworks there is a more sophisticated view. I would say that the act of music exists in several worlds simultaneously.

If you are playing repertoire material, you're stuck. There's not huge amounts you can do.

My life has improved so much since I stopped doing interviews.

Then certainly for a musician timing becomes something that is immediately accessible as a concept, because it's a necessity in ones everyday performance.

Michael Giles the first drummer of King Crimson, never agreed to the name King Crimson. But then, if you'd knew Michael, you would know he didn't agree to the album cover either. So maybe Michael didn't agree to the point of definition with many things.

You have to find a way of recognizing and describing the quality inherent in the music. If you fail to do that, then the piece itself is compromised.

So, on that simple recognition, this is who we are, everything changes, you are in a different world. You moved out from the basement.

The way we describe our world shows how we think of our world. How we think of our world governs how we interpret our world. How we interpret our world directs how we participate in the world. How we participate in the world shapes the world.

Business logic and musical logic are utterly incompatible.

Performance is a vehicle for entering different worlds of experiencing.

The concern of the musician is to play the music. It is there demanding to be given sound to.

The plot details of B movies are irrational: accept that people do things that are contradictory, against their own best interests, have short term aims & limited attention span, and do incredibly stupid things while things blow up. Apart from things blowing up, this is just like the music industry.

Use your ears to record and your eyes to video.

The aim is freedom conscience and truth

Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence.

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

I continue to explain that plot inconsistencies in B movies are consistent, and should not be allowed to undermine one's enjoyment of the action, nor the fundamental credibility of the storyline: the good & bad guys are clearly delineated & easily recognizable, the hero duffs over the baddies, things blow up loudly & spectacularly, the good guy wins. Entirely credible.

The science is in knowing; the art in perceiving.

Beginner's luck is great for beginners.

That certain feeling happened to me in a big way quite often with the first King Crimson. Amazing things would happen-I mean, telepathy, qualities of energy, things that I had never experienced before with music. You can't tell whether the music is playing the musician or the musician is playing the music.

There is a difference between being a timekeeper and keeping the pulse or being in step with the pulse in the band.

Purely by hard work, one can become an artist.

Me and a book is a party. Me and a book and a cup of coffee is an orgy.

Music never goes away. It is always available, but we're not always available for music.

Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end.

The creative musician ... is ... the radio receiver, not the broadcasting station. His personal discipline is to improve the quality of the components, the transistors, the speakers, the alloys in the receiver itself, but never to concern himself overmuch with putting out the program. The program is there; all he has to do is receive it as far as possible.

Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice.

I would like, with the sun shining through the window on a crisp early-autumnal mid-morning, with a sufficiency of Monster Cappucino flowing in my veins to prompt minimal sentience, to declare my view for the record that Drummer Jokes are a cruel and pernicious form of humour introduced to the world by under-humoured persons lacking in sensitivity and concern for other drummers.

When music appears which only King Crimson can play, then, sooner or later, King Crimson appears to play the music.

Usually people think that it is the musicians who create the music, but in fact it is music who creates the musicians.

Music is the cup that holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken.

Expectation closes the door to what is happening in the moment.

When a record company makes a mistake, the artist pays for it. When a manager makes a mistake, the artist pays for it. When the artist makes a mistake, the artist pays for it.

In strange and uncertain times such as those we are living in, sometimes a reasonable person might despair. But hope is unreasonable and love is greater even than this. May we trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse.

The only reward the musician receives is music: The privilege of standing in the presence of music when it leans over and takes unto its confidence. As it is for the audience. In this moment everything else is irrelevant and without power. For those in music, this is the moment when life becomes unreal.

What has changed in 40 years? It’s very simple: 40 years ago there was a market economy. Today there is a market society – today everything, including ethics, has a price.

To me, art is the capacity to experience one's innocence: craft is how you get to that point. Maturity in a musician would be the point at which one is innocent at will. At that point the relationship between music and the musician is direct and reliable. The relationship with music is always mysterious: when it works, you can never tell. You can never guarantee when it's going to work. You can only to put yourself in a place where it's more likely to happen.

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

Understanding is simple. Knowing is complicated.

We know others to the extent that we know ourselves.

If the audience doesn't hear what is going on, is it going on?

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence.