T Lev-ity

Tony Levin, recognized as one of the best bassists/musicians in the world, put up some amusing thoughts about recent King Crimson rehearsals.

May 24, Nashville

There's no experience quite like rehearsing with Crimson.

We're working on the classic material, not trying to write more yet - but some of it is so complex it's quite an effort to get it right.For me, a couple of the pieces from the recent albums I hadn't played on are proving very challenging indeed.

I even wrote to Trey Gunn (he'd played the bass parts) asking for some clues to the parts! I joked with Trey that to figure out the part I needed an abacus and a bottle of Advil.

As an example, here are some of my names for sections of the piece:

Trey's 28 Ramble - then 29, followed by Rising 15's.

C tone row in 5, triple offset with guitars, then backward.

E Boogalooga with Silent Seven followed by Variable 11's with door knocks in G.

And, from Level 5 there's the Blazing 11's RiffSplat on E, then inverted after two drum 11's.

As I said, there's nothing quite like rehearsing with Crimson!

(Note to self: learn to play parallel 7/8 and 5/8.)

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Couple of thoughts:

If TL is having trouble, then the music is monstrous.

Fripp likes to demonstrate that he can tap out 5 and 7 simultaneously whilst holding a conversation; a little trick which he files under "division of attention." At the February seminar, Fripp made the hapless guitar students "thrack," meaning meters of 5 against 7. It really is a cool effect, but quite disconcerting the first couple of times through.

Well...the first 100 times through.