King Crimson Discipline Era Transcriptions Book
I mentioned in my Fracture and FraKctured performance videos that I’d have some really exciting stuff to announce later in 2020. Well, I can finally share one of the big ones: Trey Gunn and Gabriel Riccio are releasing a new book of transcriptions of the 1980s King Crimson albums: Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair. And what makes this extra exciting for me is that I was one of the three proofreaders for this book!
That’s right! After decades of waiting, you will finally have the official, authoritative sheet music for every audible instrument on every song on every one of these three historic albums. There’s never been a better time to be a King Crimson fan! Throughout the years of my Failure to Fracture video series, many of you have written to me asking if I had transcriptions of pieces like Discipline, Frame by Frame, Three of a Perfect Pair, and Elephant Talk. Now they are finally and officially available for purchase and you no longer have to wait for me to reply to your email.
A few people have asked what it means to have been a proofreader on this book. Well, I spent many, many hours playing through the transcriptions of all three albums, and offering my own insights into how I believe or know Robert Fripp was playing his parts. We got into the nitty gritty details of pick strokes, fingerings, and intention. We literally went frame by frame through every single YouTube video we could find of the 80s performances. We found some surprises along the way that revealed fingering and picking options I’ve never seen in print before, like some of Robert’s left hand work on Three of a Perfect Pair and Larks III.
As you may already know, I’ve written an upcoming book about my 22-year journey learning Fracture. Gabriel helped me with my book transcription work, as did Trey, and it was only natural that I’d get involved in their project. It’s funny how this stuff works out.
The other two proofreaders, Matt Tate and Dean Pescarella, are excellent musicians with expertise in guitar, stick, and bass. Between the five of us, we are pretty confident we struck the right balance between “this is what was actually played” and “this is probably what they meant to play.” As Trey says in the book’s introduction, “King Crimson rarely steps in the same puddle twice,” so we want to honor that principle in the sheet music without being prescriptive.
As to the accuracy of these transcriptions, Gabriel and Trey had access to stems from the original multi-track recordings. These are as close to isolated tracks as one can get without access to the original tapes. Gabe has a great ear and, frankly, I cannot believe that he even pulled off a lot of this work. Some of the synthesized MIDI guitar solos require exceptional hearing and understanding of how these systems work when guitarists are using pushing the tech as far as it’ll go.
I’m amazed at how he has been able to pull so much order out of the musical chaos. The Neal, Jack, and Me and Indiscipline transcriptions are stunning for these very reasons. When I read and listened through Neal, Jack, and Me, I still couldn’t understand the piece. Adrian is playing in 5/8, Robert in 6/8, while Tony and Bill are in 4/4. The measure lines rarely line up and I was left thinking, “How on earth does anyone write and perform this stuff? And how does anyone else hear it and transcribe it?!”
Same goes for Discipline where Adrian and Robert are playing in 5/8, Tony is playing in 17/16, and Bill is playing in both! Gabe captures all of the concurrent time signatures, explains what effects are being used, and incorporates the performance options from multiple prominent recordings of many of these songs.
In this book, you will see what a disciplined and energetic beast of a player Robert is, particularly on pieces like Frame by Frame and Discipline. You’ll see how creative Adrian Belew’s rhythm and solo work can get, particularly on Neurotica. You’ll be slack-jawed at Bill Bruford’s ability to bounce between polyrhythmic and hemiolic drumming. You’ll have the nitty gritty details of Tony Levin’s stick taps, slaps, pops, tunings, and techniques. This is not a transcription book for the faint of heart. I’m a bit of a sheet music geek myself, and even I get lost trying to make sense of this music.
If you’ve ever wondered about the music behind the music, it doesn’t get much better than this. This isn’t a book for the casual collector. It is a book for the real fans of King Crimson and innovative composition and performance. These four men stretched themselves to their limits—which you can hear and see when you play along—and put together music that has opened the ears of millions of listeners around the world.
It is rare to see this type of music dissected, ordered, and explained in such detail. There will be no guide more definitive to walk you through these albums than this book. And for that reason, I am humbled and honored to have played a part in making it a reality.
The book is titled “The Discipline Era Transcriptions” and can be purchased on Trey’s “Music Scores” Bandcamp page at MusicScores.Bandcamp.com. It is available for $50 plus shipping. Get your order in as soon as possible so you can receive it by Christmas. And while you’re there, check out all the other great transcriptions available from Trey on that Bandcamp page.
There is an important note from Trey apologizing for the international shipping costs. I hope he can figure out a workaround, but for now, the shipping is what it is, largely because of Covid. And that is extremely expensive, even to Canada and Mexico.
We will be doing an interview with Trey, Gabriel, Dean, and Matt, but for now, I wanted to help get the word out while I wait for my own copy to arrive in the mail.
I hope you’re excited! Let me know in the comments what you plan to do when your copy arrives. What songs are you most excited about? What instrument are you going to tackle? Should we do a collaboration video performance? Give us your ideas! Then, go order your copy.
