Robert Fripp - Frippertronics Interview

When I first started posting the Zoe Keating stuff, I mentioned a bit about the loops and how I used to do something much like that - bit more limited - with a digital delay.

I used to play around with a couple of delays and record hours of bizarre sound effects, making the electric guitar sound more like a keyboard or a church bell or anything but a guitar, really.

Had a guitar teacher who advised me not to do that. No one experimented like that, it wasn't healthy, it would grow hair on my hands, and it certainly wasn't commercial.

No, it wasn't commercial. Not entirely.

But there are folks like Keating who mix and match with the effects processing to create their music.

Robert Fripp - guitarist of the prog rock masters, King Crimson - worked with the effects so much that he's done albums (and not a small number of them) played entirely by 1 guitar and effects. Frippertronics, he calls them.

Here's a bit of Mr. Fripp speaking about creativity and musicianship - although, really much of it can be applied to any art. Some Frippertronics supply the backing music.