The Internet amplifies the lowest common denominator....and then you have Sir Robert Fripp, the guitar genius who changed music, who created music that is for ever. He takes the time and makes the effort to talk to us earthlings and explains electric guitar basics. I don't even have an electric guitar and love his lessons! A genius and a great man.
do you know if he holds the pick totally flat against the string? I can't seem to do that without a bit too much bend in the wrist upwards.. this leads me to gas out on the longer parts like that of fracture
@@hydroturd It seems to me that since he angles the neck of his guitar so far up, his pick is already flat against the strings without the need to adjust the wrist.
thanks for the reply @heatherperleberg7816 , I think you're right! Sitting in classical position like he is here in the video, helps to keep that pick angle. I often forget to do it until note # 200 something of some repeated arpeggio phrase and then my wrist is locked and I've begun missing notes entirely and it all falls apart. Grrr.. I think I might actually tape a checksheet onto the back of my guitar to help remember these details.
@@hydroturd Funnily enough, I remember when I was trying to learn the song Discipline, I actually did have a technique checksheet I would run through. That song took a toll on me.
Discipline is a great one! Boy is it tiring, haven't attempted it in a while now. The first tune to really show me the limitations of my picking approach was Sunday All over The World. It took me a while to just be able to get through the intro. Apparently they opened with that song as the first one during each of the shows with that band! @@heatherperleberg7816
Wow that is awesome.. A bit of a dream come true... 30plus years ago as a teen sitting on my bed in Flat Rock, MI practicing to your music in the dark, imagining attending your workshop and the inspiration, playing (i tend not to say practice) in a room almost non stop through the night as you walk down the hallway listening to all.. I really appreciate the breaking down of barriers with this youtube and some social media
@@leafaleonhart playing a lot of one off improvisational stuffs for awhile lately and tend not to practice it much before recording.. Though I am not against the word nor concept.. Still practice my scales, they are home base for me since '90s I can always go there.. When I was really young I played or practiced on a regiment of 6-8 hours of guitar and 6-8 hours of visual art making, also reading and other activities.. the greatest reward was at the end of the day turning on the tv, with guitar in hand, watching Star Trek Next Generation, then Are You Being Served and my favorite live performances... anyway.. this is a bit of an explanation
Robert Fripp ... A True Craftsman . A Teacher . Still a Student . Robert at Home Series . Shows the Guitar Master Still Refining and pushing His Muse . Mr. Fripp is at the highest Level. Level 5.
Thank you Mr. Fripp! So it appears my right hand technique is already correct, for the most part. I do like to anchor the ball of my wrist on the bridge sometimes if I'm muting strings, or to help with accuracy.
As usual when you discuss playing guitar, this is well-considered and methodical in the best, most practical, sense. It isn’t necessary to brilliant playing to have such a beautifully logical approach, but the approach makes such playing much easier.
I'm 2nding the comment from Mr Frank James English and I was trying to ask your Celebrity Video Message service, if I could purchase multiple videos to get wonderful guitar lessons like this one as I've always been amazed by your plectrum style. Myself, I'm a finger picker all the way and self taught. While enamored with players like Andrei Segovia, Narcisco Yepes, John Williams, Paco Pena and the legendary Paco De Lucia, I've always loved the tone and detail of notes that you've been able to obtain with your unique plectrum technique. For too long, I've thought of the pick as the action people use to clean there nose, so it's high time I learned to utilise the device that is the plectrum in all it's glory. Thank you so much oh great Mr Fripp. May your current tour go well. I'm hoping the manager might release a Blu-Ray at some point for those of us unable to attend.
Robert, you have not truly lived life on the road until you throw the television out of the window of your hotel. Oh, but please wait until after the October 6 event to demonstrate. The Radisson Hotel would be a perfect place to perform this amazing stunt. I hesitate to show you the wrong way to do it because you may injure yourself (or somebody else). Loving these guitar lessons.
Ah, but one must use proper technique to throw the television, with economy of motion, and not distorting posture that would interfere with the next motion, running away and driving the car into the pool. Kidding aside, it is fascinating how much thought and effort you have put in these very basic, important movements. While I mainly play classical/fingerstyle on guitar, the details of holding the pick don't apply directly, but I can see where careful attention to basic details still applies. Thanks for the lesson!
Thank you Robert! BTW the book is superb (& rather mindblowing) (oh wow I still have one Herdim, carefully preserved and used as a calibration model for making GC style plectra)
Gentle, interesting, precise, very English -nay West Country - in the non-pejorative sense, incredibly tight of focus, subversive, insubordinate, ridiculous, knowing, vastly gifted and utterly and completely barking mad. I've loved your music for four decades Robert and it's a pleasure to meet the man behind it at last. You're just who I expected you to be!
Amazing! I have a distinct inward congenital twist on the first joint of BOTH of my index fingers, just like Robert! (Other than the love of music, probably the only thing I'll ever have in common with Mr. Fripp! 😉)
Thank you kind sir for another glimpse and trip into the world of Fripp. Love the ‘touring’ moments of your video and you always put a smile on my face.🇦🇺👍🙏
my left hand pinky was hit by a knife when as a young boy I was doing some stupid and dangerous game, right at the middle joint on top and it's been a pain to play certain chords ever after because it wont fold; sometimes it just stays straight and then snaps on it's own will and misses the chord it should have held, but anyway, I learned to go around the problem. I just wanted to say 'Love from Italy'! Mr. Fripp rules! Earthbound, along with few other lp's, shaped my sense of songwriting. Ciao!
Given that guitar strings typically sound brighter closer to the bridge and warmer closer to the neck I have a question: have you determined the optimum place to strike the string with the plectrum?
Thank you so much, Robert, for this picking lesson. I have been struggling with my picking technique for years, knowing it was wrong. I could describe my technique as a chicken, pecking at feed. So much wasted motion. Your lesson has completely changed the way I play (for the better)!
Mr Robert I appreciate since first album what you have done - thank you . The moment (I still remember that evening ta home in 69 and that old radio) I've heard somewhere form foreign station on AM/MW Epitaph turnd me to King Crimson for all my years . After I try to convince myself that I am not able realy to play giutar, apparently not finished yet😄. It was quite absorbing to do with my engineer job as stance. Pls continue .
Thank you so much! I remember reading either in the old DGM diary or ET (shudders!) an explanation on this, and I must say your words came across just as clearly as this video. The added meat of visual aid and examples are greatly appreciated.
Thanks Robert, I’ve bookmarked these lessons on RU-vid so I could learn how you do things. As a senior citizen with multiple injuries I find it healthy to learn how others overcome their personal limitations through practice, discipline and healthy habits. You should consider packaging these into a DVD collection for retail sales. I’ll be getting your new book soon! 😎
Like fingerprints no 2 players hold the pick or strum a chord in exactly the same way . Its partly what determines the players unique style . and thats a great thing .
It's interesting to me to also see the fingernails on the right hand for fingerpicking..... Long right hand fingernails can pose a noise problem when using a flat pick -- making the position of the right hand and holding of the pick critical to avoid the fingertips and their nails tapping the guitar top (mostly on an acoustic of course).
At the beginning as you're looking out the window, looks like Nathan Philips Square, and in the direction you're looking you can almost see the building next to the square where me and my friend practice NST... not regularly enough.
Thank you for putting in the time to make this video of importance. I would think these types of questions posed to you would be like running nails on a chalk board. I will take heed and incorporate your knowledge in my workout routines. All the best!!
I hold my pick with a slight slant and angled slightly donwards, helps me alternate pick faster, but I hold it more parallel to the strings when I crosspick
The Fracture section looks effortless when you play it... the trickiest aspect (for me) would be skipping strings at that tempo without the pick catching on unwanted strings. Downward pick slanting can help with this, but it's not clear if you employ that or not... or cross-picking? Great demo, thanks! More details in future videos are always welcome... maybe cross-picking technique?
The thumb doesn't pinch the pick against the first knuckle, nor is it held loosely, but the whole first two knuckles pin the full edge of the triangle side very firmly under the pad of the thumb, and this grip is constant, so that the wrist motion reliably controls the strike zone of the pick, not the grip on the pick. It is very easy to knock the pick out of the hand of any student trying to use the fingers, not the wrist, to control the strike. Not that this ever happens.
On my first Guitar Craft course I asked the same question about skipping strings. The answer: "It's magic." In other words, we don't need to concern ourselves with this issue per se. If we take care that our wrist is releasing and returning in a motion that only moves the pick enough to move back and forth across one string, and we are moving from the elbow when we need to get from one string to another, the rest will largely take care of itself.
It is fun to use imagination to envision other life forms making music on some distant planet in this universe and just how amazed they would be at Robert's playing. Great stuff.
Cheers Robert, a well-meaning question. Why do you say the life of a working player instead of saying the life of a working musician or touring musician? I know it's just semantics but you being such a particular gentleman who always tries to be exact with his language I thought I would ask.
Dear Robert. Thank you for this video. This is a great refresher for me since my right hand often drifts into the “bad habit” zone from time to time. The last time you adjusted my right hand was in Santa Barbara GC course in 2002 so this video was very much needed. I have two questions. First, I find that the Ovation guitar body causes my right arm to go numb when playing for certain amount of time. It’s possible that the edge of the Ovation guitar is partially cutting off the blood circulation. Do you have any suggestion on how I might rest my arm on the guitar body in a way that would mitigate the issue without compromising the right hand position? Second question, does the thickness of the pick matter in relation to maintaining a good right hand picking habit? I use picks that are 1mm & 1.5mm and I believe the Guitar Craft picks are much thinner. I find that I tend to grip harder with thinner picks that I would with thicker ones. Thank you!
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I can never seem to get the finger pressure right on the pick when attempting rapid up and down, single string strokes. It either slips out and pings off somewhere or I press too hard and end up jamming against the string without passing over it. Or I just miss the string entirely. Basically, I'm crap lol
Well (said in the cheeky voice of a young British man trying to sound like a middle-aged British woman) Oh my, he walks down the aul just like a regular person. 🙂 No, but seriously, I have a Fender Telecaster into which I had a Fernandez sustainer system installed. The sustainer pick-up is a single coil in the bridge position. It has 2 small switches to change the tone of the sustain to one of two types. I have a question about your Les Paul...are you using 2 single coil sustainer system pick-ups in the neck position, and if so, is it so you can get these two tones of sustain at the same time (when and if you want)? There's a song by the group Bauhaus where their guitarist (on the album version of a song) produces 2 different sustained distortion tones at the same time. This was on their 1st album, which I'm sure was produced before Fernandez started making these systems. I'm sure this was done on the record by recording them individually onto two tracks, but it would be great to be able to produce those two tones at the same time live.
Even though I work in a very different profession now, the trappings of your work life on the road look a lot like mine, except my "performance" is consulting services on a construction site wearing boots and a hard hat.
Now, think for a moment about Wes Montgomery. No pick, using just his RH thumb, 95% just downstroke.. doesn´t it turn all the theory upside down ? 😇 And to boot - his left hand was except for octaves and complex chords only first 3 fingers.. with help of loads of legatos and open strings.. And yet - what wealth and pleasure it has brought us.. It is the end, the result - the musicality of the performer... not the means to get there so much
thanks for this Robert. I'd been learning pieces from the California Guitar Trio and The League of Crafty Guitarists for a while as I've been trying to get situated in the tuning. Currently learning Moving Force. I've yet to have a chance to attend a guitar craft, so this is invaluable to me. One question - do you *always* pick with the pick flat against the string? I can never seem to do this without getting a bit too much bend in the wrist.
