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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

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

Beginner's luck is great for beginners.

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

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.

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.'

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

Business logic and musical logic are utterly incompatible.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence.

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

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

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

Performance is a vehicle for entering different worlds of experiencing.

Purely by hard work, one can become an artist.

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

The aim is freedom conscience and truth

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

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.

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.

The science is in knowing; the art in perceiving.

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.

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

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

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.

Understanding is simple. Knowing is complicated.

Use your ears to record and your eyes to video.

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

We know others to the extent that we know ourselves.

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

What we hear is the quality of our listening.

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.

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