Accompanying Notes
I
Coming Into The Space…
i
a
Here we are.
We’ve moved from the outside to the inside.
b
The outside world is outside.
It has no hold on us, no demand upon our attention, no purchase on our feelings.
It is outside.
c
This is inside. This is our world.
d
To move from the outside to the inside we cross a threshold, an in-between space, neither outside nor inside, and which has a distinct quality of its own: this is the Liminal Zone.
ii
The Liminal Zone
a
The quality of liminality may be found in places, times and people.
NYC between 1975-83. Berlin in the same period.
A generation coming of age, feeling adrift and apart from the dominant values and aspirations of the culture.
b
The three prime characteristics of liminality are ambiguity, hazard and opportunity.
One opportunity is to re-orient the trajectory of our lives.
That is, to refine or re-define our aim in this life.
c
The intensity with which we experience liminality is proportionate to our necessity to be present, to be who we are. To be Real.
This sense of necessity may take the form of a Burning Question.
iii
a
What is a Burning Question?
A Burning Question is a matter of life and death.
It comes from personal necessity.
b
The heat of a Burning Question may be measured by how much we are prepared to pay for an answer.
iv
Liminality may also be found in processes: too far from the beginning to go back, too far from the end to go forward.
This is the Great Divide, where Burning Questions are mostly found.
II
Coming Into The Room…
i
The music playing as we were entering the room was chosen to demarcate the threshold.
At the End of Time was recorded live at All Saints Church, Broad Chalke, Wiltshire on January 14th. 2006. It was a Saturday, and the performance was at lunchtime.
David Bowie’s Heroes was recorded in Berlin at Hansa Studios in July 1977. The Berlin wall was about 150 meters from the studio with a machine gun turret clearly visible from the studio control room window.
Hammond Song by The Roches was recorded in September 1978 at the Hit Factory on West 54th. in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC.
ii
So, having moved from the outside, through the liminal zone, we are now on the inside.
This is our time, this is our space.
Here we are.
iii
We Begin…
We begin where we are.
Before we Do Something, we Do Nothing.
I prefer this cataphatic injunction to the term Non-Doing.
We begin by Doing Nothing: we cultivate a Still Point from which all action proceeds.
And while Doing Nothing, we become present.
III
Attention
i
We become present by engaging the active attention.
Attention is a natural property of the angels.
For us, active attention is a possibility.
ii
a
There are three qualities of attention: active, passive, and none whatsoever.
Active, that is volitional or free attention, is of three kinds: directed, receptive and neutral.
b
An example of active, directed attention is to listen to ourselves as we speak.
For a musician, an example of active, directed attention is to play a piece of music in tune, in tone and in time while listening to ourselves and also the other members of the ensemble.
In my professional life, this is notable by its rarity.
c
An example of an engaged, receptive attention: listening to a piece of music that holds no interest for us. For many women, King Crimson does that job nicely.
d
Active, neutral attention is rare.
e
An example of passive attention is that of attracted attention.
Our attention is taken from us.
Internally, this is often through associations, such as the whirring of Monkey Mind, emotional reactions, and habitual patterns of behaviour.
Externally, as with news headlines and advertising, our attention is deliberately stolen.
f
Where there is no attention, nobody is home.
Alternatively expressed, our head is placed where sunshine never falls while we comment on the weather.
Elvis has left the building.
g
Where our attention is, is where we are.
h
The quality of our attention is all we properly have in life.
iii
a
A Present Moment…
A Present Moment is a moment of presence.
b
A professional attention span is about 45 minutes.
We can hold ourselves in place for 45 minutes, even with topics that hold little interest for us.
c
An attention span of, say, 90 minutes requires long practice.
I associate this with mastery of a speciality or oneself.
I apologise for the gendered language, so an alternative word for mastery is mystery.
To rephrase, an engaged attention span of 90 minutes is a mystery.
d
A good professional may commit to a project of 1, 3, perhaps 7 years, depending upon the degree of their personal practice or discipline.
A characteristic of the master / mystery musician is that they may engage in extended periods of commitment, perhaps even 21 years.
e
The attention span of a rock fan, presented with music in which they have no interest whatsoever, is 10 to 20 minutes.
An example: on the Satriani and Vai G3 tour in Europe during June and July 2004, I was booed off every night for 18 shows.
For my 40-minute slot, audience twitching began after 20 minutes, booing after 30.
We shortened my slot to 30 minutes, and the booing began after 20 minutes.
Then we shortened my slot to 20. There was still booing, but it didn’t last as along.
iv
a
Volitional Attention May Be Practised
The good news: active attention may be practised.
In Guitar Craft, we practice the Division of Attention.
Demonstrate: 5 over 4:
We beat 4 in the left hand and 5 in the right.
If we’d like to take this a little further, perhaps we beat 4 in our left hand and 5 in the right while having a conversation at the same time.
Or alternate the hands.
Or recite the factors that affect demand in conventional economic theory.
And if we’d like to take this a little further. while delivering the keynote at an International Alexander conference.
b
Whenever we make an effort help is available.
As a side comment, one that I am unable to prove but suggest that you consult your own experience, is that whenever we make an effort help is available.
And this is a mystery.
IV
Coming Into Ourselves
i
We’ve come into the space, come into the room, and now we come into ourselves.
We engage our free attention and move inside our bodies.
Let’s say, into the right hand.
Coming into the right hand…
May we bring part of our attention:
into the bones of the right hand – the thumb, first finger, the second finger, the third finger, the little finger.
Now into the muscles of the right hand.
Now the flesh of the right hand.
Now the skin of the right hand.
Now the surface of the right hand, noticing the movement and temperature of the air meeting the hand.
Now into the whole of the right hand, noticing the sensation within the right hand, this buzzing electricity of life, the pulse and the flow of blood.
Now into the atmosphere surrounding the right hand.
While maintaining our sense of contact, of sensation, within the right hand, we bring part of attention into the left hand.
Is our experience of the left hand different to that of the right hand in this moment?
Yes! Of course it is.
Returning part of our attention to the right hand, we move the energy we find there into the left hand.
ii
a
Does anyone have a problem counting to five?
A question: does anyone here have a problem counting to five?
While we counting to five, we’ll clap our hands on 1 and 4.
A question: does anyone have a problem counting to seven?
While counting to seven, we’ll clap our hands on 1, 4 and 6.
b
This simple exercise of playing in two groups, one in 5 and the other in 7, is called THRAKKING in Guitar Craft.
It was initially introduced as an exercise of health and vigour, also a binding exercise to bring together participants on Guitar Craft courses.
V
Coming Into The Event
i
Music so wishes to be heard that sometimes it calls on unlikely characters to give it voice, and to give it ears.
This wishing-to-be heard calls the Performance Event into manifestation, where Music, Musician and Audience may come together as one, in communion.
ii
This communion has six different forms of being and experiencing itself.
These forms, or principles, are simultaneously present within the Performance.
These are the Six Principles of the Performance Event.
The First Principle of the Performance Event…
I
When people get together, something happens.
When people get together with music, something remarkable happens.
This something remarkable has an emergent quality.
The Creation continues being created.
The Second Principle Of The Performance Event…
II
In a performance, things come together, mysteriously, and go better than we might anticipate or deserve.
It took me several years of engaging with this principle before I appreciated how much the Performance itself wishes to become, to move from potentiality in an eternal moment to actuality within the timestream.
The Third Principle Of The Performance Event…
III
Each performance is unique.
We have never been here before, nor will we be in this moment again.
How we collectively engage determines the event.
A performance may take on a life, character and spirit of its own.
The Fourth Principle Of The Performance Event…
IV
Any one performance is a multiplicity of performances.
i
Each of us has our own experience.
So, this performance event is as many performances as there are participants.
ii
If our experience has an intensity, governed by the quality of our free attention, it remains with us.
So, we may return to our experience, perhaps even in ten- or twenty-years’ time, and interrogate that experience.
Which may give us answers to questions of which we are presently unaware.
The Fifth Principle Of The Performance Event…
V
The possible is possible.
i
The possible is possible, because it has to be.
ii
In practical terms, an event is governed by contingency: personal and impersonal, inside and outside, subject to the overall conditions of time, place, person and circumstance.
iii
The transformational aspect of performance is governed by the degree to which we are able to be present, and to be who we are.
We participate in the performance to the extent that we are able to be who we are.
iv
It is possible to be who we are.
So, the possible is possible.
We begin with the possible and move gradually towards the impossible.
The Sixth Principle Of The Performance Event…
VI
The impossible is possible.
i
This is the principle I love the most.
The possible is not enough, although I am increasingly respectful of simple competence.
Engaging the impossible is to call on what is Highest in us.
ii
So…
We begin with the impossible and move gradually towards the possible.
VII
Of the Six Principles Of The Performance Event there is a Seventh Principle.
The Seventh Principle resides within Silence, so of the Seventh Principle little is spoken.
Were I to offer a few words, perhaps…
May we trust the inexpressible Benevolence of the Creative Impulse.
Alternatively, the simple proposition…
When I Am, Here, Now so is God.
Whatever the God of our understanding.
And now, may we return the Seventh Principle to Silence.
VI
Coming Into The Process
Coming into the space, coming into the room, engaging our active attention and coming into ourselves, coming into the event, we now come into the process.
i
Coming into the process, we begin where we are, moving from a Still Point.
ii
a
Any process has three stages: the beginning, the middle and the end.
Each of these three stages also has three stages, giving nine distinct qualitative points:
The beginning of the beginning, the middle of the beginning, the end of the beginning.
The beginning of the middle, the middle of the middle, and the end of the middle.
The beginning of the end, the middle of the end, and the end of the end.
b
The beginning is half of the whole, according to Pythagoras.
So, a sound beginning will take us as far as the middle.
c
In the middle is the Great Divide: too far from the beginning to go back, too far from the end to go forward – this is the Liminal Zone of any process.
d
Each of the three main stages have their own Liminal Zones, characterised by ambiguity, hazard and opportunity.
iii
a
There is no inevitability, no guarantee, that the process will succeed merely by continuing in motion.
b
There are weak moments at certain points in the process, when the process may go off course.
c
These “weak moments” require intervention, adjustment, and re-direction to maintain the trajectory of the process.
iv
a
There are three qualities of time at work in a process: sequential clock time, eternity and hyparxis, or Creative Time.
We may experience these as one thing after another, synchronicity or potential, and the Timeless Moment.
b
Creative time is timeless.
This is where decision, choice and commitment have effect within a process.
Which we bring to bear on the “weak moments” to adjust and re-direct when the process is likely to go off course.
c
Creative Time is non-causal.
In Creative time, the end may reach back and set the beginning in motion.
v
There are three qualities of ending: a finish, a conclusion, or a completion.
With a finish, something is lost.
With a conclusion, nothing much has changed.
With a completion, there is a new beginning.
vi
a
A characteristic of completion is transformation.
Something is not what it was as it began (noting that neither is it otherwise).
b
A particular quality has entered into the process, which was either not there at the beginning, or was a potential waiting to be actualised.
c
The transformation is ontological: there is a change in being.
d
For example, sounds become notes, notes become music.
Instrumentalists become musicians. Even guitarists who began tone deaf and with no sense of rhythm.
vii
a
A Learning Process has the three primary stages of injunction, application and verification.
b
We are given instruction, and may or may not be willing and able to receive it.
We apply ourselves to internalising, and making our own, what we are taught.
Then we present our work to those sufficiently qualified to judge the quality of our work.
c
In the verification, or assessment stage, of our nine distinct qualitative points:
Point Seven is validation.
The question is, does this work?
Philologically, is this strong?
Point Eight is verification.
Philologically, is this true?
At Point Nine, the process ends.
This may be a finish, a conclusion, or a completion.
viii
a
A musician’s process:
The first overall stage is learning the instrument.
The second overall stage is learning the notes, the repertoire.
The third overall stage is learning the music.
b
In the first overall stage:
The beginning of the beginning, we act on the instrument from the outside.
The middle of the beginning, we move inside the instrument.
The end of the beginning, the instrument becomes an extension of our body.
c
In the second overall stage:
We play the notes.
We move inside the notes.
The notes move inside us.
d
In the third overall stage:
We play the music.
We move inside the music.
The music moves inside us.
ix
A performance process…
a
The beginning of the third overall stage is when the audience walks in the room.
An ideal audience is sufficiently competent to judge the merits of the performer.
For the performer, there is nothing like exposure to public ridicule to galvanise the attention.
b
There are seven levels of geographical validation and verification:
domestic, local, regional, national, international, global and interplanetary.
c
For a performer, we begin playing at home to friends and family.
If our Mother and favourite Aunt think we suck, then good to take up a career in plumbing.
d
Some people laugh at the notion of interplanetary performance: record companies incorporate interplanetary rights in their standard contracts.
e
So we may ask, is it possible to conceive of a performance which has cosmic resonance? That makes a contribution to the stars?
VII
Shall we change the world?
i
Wednesday will be the Great Divide for this conference.
ii
A question: shall we change the world?
A commonplace of my musical generation was that Music can change the world!
So, the question becomes – how do we change the world?
iii
One answer is, we change the world indirectly.
We change the world by changing ourselves.
It is possible, but difficult, to change ourselves.
iv
A good beginning is to change an attitude.
For example: I have the right.
An alternative attitude: I have the responsibility. I have the obligation.
We cultivate the attitude that what is in front of us is an opportunity.
v
We change ourselves. This is direct action to change the world.
vi
Change is always against gravity.
Change is only possible when we are present to ourselves: here, now.
Change is only possible when we wish to change.
If we wish to change, we need the guidance of someone with experience.
In 1974 I received this advice (from the Rev. Peter Dewey):
There is a law – light drives out the dark. Do not concern yourself with driving out the dark. Concern yourself with bringing in the light.
vii
And now, the world has changed.
Robert Fripp
Monday 3rd. August, 2025;
13th. International Alexander Technique Congress,
Dublin.