Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The League of Crafty Guitarists

Hello fellow Progheads!  Isn't it amazing (and a little scary) how fast seven days fly by?  This week in my final tribute to the rebirth--for the eighth time--of King Crimson, I searched the library high and low for something different and creative.  Imagine the deja vu I felt walking through the section marked for The League of Crafty Guitarists, and remembering I saw one the band's first live performances in Boston waaaaay back in 1986...oh, the memories....

The League of Crafty Guitarists is the brain child of Robert Fripp...yes--him again.  One more blog post to shout the excitement of the King Crimson reunion.  I promise to venture elsewhere next week, but I could not resist just a glimpse and a listen to some really cool acoustic guitar work.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have put the math book down and picked up a six-string when I was a teen...

Back to the blog at hand...The League of Crafty Guitarists started out as a series of guitar and personal development classes, and since 1986 over three thousand crafty guitarists have graduated from these sacred halls.  Before I go off on a tangent here let me make my first musical choice..."A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."  As the music starts and you begin to fall between chords and notes, you realize there are a dozen players building this tune.  Trying to sort them out is almost impossible, so you ask yourself, "Why bother?"  Just lie back and enjoy what is destined to be a journey through sight, sound, imagination, time, and perhaps even a mood swing or two...

As I move along the buffet I find another morsel that seems very tempting.  "Fireplace" is an extremely interesting piece of music...in much the same way the Mona Lisa is an extremely interesting piece of art.  The players here work incredibly well together, and the flow is quite melodic.  Of course--in typical Fripp fashion--the ending hangs there for you...wait for it...twice.

Helping number three is a piece entitled, "Bicycling to Afghanistan."  On the one hand the music pulls in the listener as you feel yourself hanging on by your fingertips with each passing note.  All of a sudden and ever-so-sneakily the music has found a way to wrap itself around your fingers and work its way up to your elbows, helping you improve your grip on both the song and your head...

Listening to acoustic guitar is an exercise in mind discipline--at least for me.  It is very easy to get caught up in loud music and yearn for the great guitar riff that just shreds your ears, or that bass line that drags you down deep into the inner bowels of the song. But to listen to acoustic music is to unplug not only one's ears, but also one's mind.  To sit back--really just sit back--and let the soothing balm that is acoustic guitar simply move over you slowly and deliberately is very freeing and gratifying.  If you've read even one of my posts you know I enjoy music in many ways prog; metal, experimental, loose, loud, and always different.  But there are times I just want to forget everything and let the music direct me instead the other way around.  The League of Crafty Guitarists does just that...

Liner notes...this week liner notes takes a back seat to reality--there have been so many guitar players move through The League of Crafty Guitarists that an attempt to name them all would be a lesson in futility.  I do know that Trey Gunn cut his teeth here, and countless others have learned to hone their craft by joining the League.  Suffice to say The League of Crafty Guitarists is led by Robert Fripp and as such there really is no way of knowing who did what when, where, or on which album...

I chose the track below as a fitting end to a soothing post.  "Invocation" washes over your ears like low tide in July on Cape Cod...and as if that were not smooth enough--this piece was recorded live.  The guitar is many things in the many different hands of so many different players.  In the hands that make up The League of Crafty Guitarists, the guitar is an extension of the soul...



OK fellow progheads, I know...the original intention of this journey was to seek out new music and new adventures in the prog world.  Pardon my veering down Robert Fripp Boulevard the past two weeks as I celebrate in my own way the eighth incarnation of King Crimson and their upcoming tour.  I promise to be back on track next week with something different and prog tinged...until then, pour a glass of single malt and melt away...








No comments:

Post a Comment