GC Course Diaries by Robert Fripp: Level 1 & 2 Lebanon in New Jersey, USA

Date or timeframe: 01-09-2000 / 11-09-2000
Venue: Baptist Camp
City: Lebanon, NJ
Country: United States
Source: Robert Fripp
Category(-ies): Diary, Journal / Word

Guitar Craft
Level One & Level Two
Lebanon, New Jersey, USA
2nd. – 9th. September 2000

Sunday, 3rd. September 2000; 09.18

Much of the early work on GC courses is intended to gradually prepare the player to withstand downloads of high-quality energy, when and if that occurs. When we are personally unprepared and Music Central comes online, it’s possible that a fuse might blow. This becomes apparent in, for example, arbitrary behaviour, counter-productive decisions, the delusion that The Big Me has created this Work Of Art, and that not only am I special but that I am really special. Even, that I was created uniquely by God to serve A Special Purpose. This last one requires discrimination: we are each of us created unique and to fulfil a particular destiny. But for that, we have to move through the conditions of our fate.

Our early work in GC also aims to create situations and conditions where we may have a direct taste of higher quality experiencing, and a sense of what life might be like if we were to step outside the mundane. Then, we continue to have a connection to the mundane, but we recognise it’s not where we properly belong. If this taste of “real living” has a resonance for us, then perhaps we might take a shot at learning how to row upstream.

Thursday, 7th. September 2000; 09.45

Comments over breakfast from the Level Two on their performance last night at Miller’s Tavern. The Level One was waiting for them outside the “ballroom” as they came back from the show. Overall, the performance is judged a success. The performers outnumbered the audience by 3 to 1. Maybe that helped.

The task for the Level One today is the application of quality: to find one small part of what we do and discharge it superbly. This must be very small, easily definable, and (therefore) easily verifiable. Like, sitting on a chair. This is a frequent occurrence in the life of a course (at the least). Are we able to sit on a chair effortlessly and without unnecessary motion? Or, put the guitar on the body? Or, learning the notes in A natural minor at the Seventh Position?

12.06 A Parade of Hands for much of the past two hours.

12.52 Perceptive comments in the past hour of personal meetings.

16.27 Performances at lunchtime continued. The personal meetings this afternoon addressed the subtleties of practice more than how to hold a pick. Several insightful comments. The New Jersey Guitar Circle is about to arrive for our meeting.

The Level One presented the results of The Application of Quality. This was mostly poor.

The tasks chosen were often too large. Like, playing a C major scale in the Seventh Position but using our eyes to guide the hand to that part of the guitar neck. A more useful approach would have been to practise raising the hand to the Seventh Position without using the eyes. Or, discharging an aim (itself a large one) within a group of people. We begin this exercise with ourselves: to move this to a group setting is a very large undertaking. Or, to relax the shoulders, which is a good aim; but, in the terms in which this exercise was presented, not a task which is easily available to external verification.

This is a powerful exercise, and its repercussions take place in several worlds. In the physical world of our hands, once we have established a small and particular part of a practice—like being able to place our hands on the guitar at certain points without being totally reliant on the eyes for guidance—this becomes a point of reliability and, in time, even of certainty. So, in the future very little attention need ever be lost to this simple yet frequent action—once it is established in our practice. Then, once this small action is reliable, we move to establishing reliability in another small part of our overall practice. These small “bricks” of reliability, once set in place, become foundation stones.

A quality is ungovernable by number. So, one “small” act of quality is as big as one “large” act of quality. To perform an act with quality is to juxtapose the worlds of the conditioned and the unconditioned. When quality is invited to enter an action, and enter the world of things, it then “spreads” and becomes available to others, to the extent that they are able to respond and accept.

Friday, 8th. September 2000; 12.37

The morning meeting addressed passing the notes of C natural minor / E flat major one note at a time, from chair to chair. This is intensive work in The Circle.

14.29 One of the Level One has gone off in some high dudgeon: they didn’t want to leave. It was “unfair” that when their course had ended, they were not allowed to stay on. During the Level One, the energy of the course was sufficient to contain their disruptive tendencies. For this person, their behaviour took one particular form, constantly repeated, to which they were blind. Now the course is over, there isn’t a “container” for this behaviour. So, were they to impinge on the Level Two without having the wherewithal to “pay” for their presence, they would disrupt it and without being able to know or see how and why.

En passant, I was hoping to be able to invite any and all of the Level One to stay longer, but the practicalities at the Lebanon Baptist Camp prevent this: the Christian Motorcyclists’ Association and their Harleys have been arriving all morning.

One of the Kitchen Team has, independently, undertaken to perform for the Christian Bikers. This initiative is not “bad”: it was made in good faith and with goodwill, but it was made without reference to the Director of the course (RF). So, an undertaking was given without reference to how this might impact on other possibilities for the course. Then it moves to how the course as a whole is able to honour this undertaking, and find a place for that, without individuals on the course being committed to it. Add to this: the Christian Bikers told our kitchen person that they get in the face of other bikers (but without violence), that the Holy Spirit leads other bikers to them, and asked if our music honoured God. For any Level Two who has difficulties with evangelism, upfront believers (of any background), and a defined religious vocabulary (of any tradition), there is endless possibility for schism, reaction, and disputation. In other words, good grist for this course’s mill.

A member of the Team came to see me before lunch: they had seen music before it’s composed. To put this slightly differently (and in my own words), they had had an insight into the World of Energies, the unconditioned. This is the “place” that music comes from, where all potential is present, and before possibilities become actualised and defined.

This was a state not a station: a visit, not where the Crafty lived. But now, having visited, they know for themselves what Music might be like in the penthouse roof garden.

Silence is very much like this for me: limitless possibility, not yet committed. Neither can be known. The “frequency band” is above the “knowing” (even understanding) level. But once having visited, even though beyond words and what we can know, we know that this is how it is: we have had a taste of what is real.

Saturday, 9th. September 2000; 12.16

The personal meetings so far have had less to do with The Right Hand than usual. Hooray!

17.19 My last two personal meetings. The volunteer performance team will shortly be going over to the Bikers For Jesus.

The centre of many personal meetings has been how to begin to establish an Interior Architecture. A recommended approach is:

Begin and end the day with definition, intention and love.
Establish hourly points of certainty and contact throughout the day.
Establish the morning sitting.

If an evening sitting is possible, even better; but the morning is key. There are energies made naturally available through the process of sleep and which enable us to actively engage in the early morning, before the world wakes up, begins to think, and send out vast clouds of negativity into the psychic atmosphere. With this in place, something else becomes possible.

Shortly, my last dinner and meeting with the course before flying home tomorrow. This course has been a turning point. “Gifts were made” this week, but well beyond a frequency range where I can know what they were. But, I have a sense of one that was given to me.

Monday, 11th. September 2000; 16.52

Deepest Dorset.
The Level Two completed at 22.19 on Saturday evening.

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