Robert Fripp Quotes

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?

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The only reward the musician receives is music: the privilege of standing in the presence of music when it leans over and takes us into 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 real.

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

Understanding is simple. Knowing is complicated.

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

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

We know others to the extent that we know ourselves.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.'

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.

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

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence.

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.

Beginner's luck is great for beginners.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The science is in knowing; the art in perceiving.

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

Purely by hard work, one can become an artist.

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

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.

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

The aim is freedom conscience and truth

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.