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Robert Fripp

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer, producer and writer, born in 1946 in Wimborne Minster in Dorset. He was given a guitar at the age of eleven and knew, as he said later, almost at once that this would be his life. He played rock 'n' roll, traditional jazz and modern jazz, and listened to music by Bartók and the Beatles. After secondary school he played in dance bands in Bournemouth, where he met musicians he would later work with, such as John Wetton and Greg Lake.

Music and breakthrough

Fripp is best known as the guitarist, founder and only constant member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He also worked as a session musician and collaborator with, among others, David Bowie, Blondie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads and David Sylvian. His name appears on more than seven hundred releases. He devised a tape-delay system called Frippertronics, later replaced by the digital Soundscapes, and used a tuning of his own, the New Standard Tuning. His compositions often have unusual, asymmetrical rhythms.

Influence

Fripp showed that a guitar need not only play riffs and fast solos, but can also make long, floating sounds. In the magazine on rock behind the Iron Curtain he therefore appears as a listening tip: a long, shrieking note that never seems to stop.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Fripp's guitar and notice the long, sustained note that floats above the rest. Can you hear how the sound is almost like a synthesizer, and yet comes from a guitar?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

See also

Categories: Artists