The Sound of Hendrix Playing Bartók: Transpositional Combination in King Crimson

THE SOUND OF HENDRIX PLAYING BARTÓK: TRANSPOSITIONAL COMBINATION IN KING CRIMSON BRETT CLEMENT RECOGNIZED AGENDA OF PROGRESSIVE ROCK music is the merging of aspects of rock with techniques borrowed from European art music. To date, much of the scholarship on this music has been devoted to detailing classical elements as exhibited in formal and developmental techniques, rhythmic/metric aspects, or an emphasis on strict contrapuntal procedures.1 A model case in point is the band King Crimson, who has pursued this fusion in various ways over the years, even deriving inspiration from classical models outside the European mainstream (e.g., American minimalism). Robert Fripp, the band’s guitarist and leader, has described his aim as “to take the energy and spirit of rock and extend it to the music, drawing on my background as part of the European tonal harmonic tradition. In other words, what would [Jimi] Hendrix sound like playing Bartók?”2 In this article, I focus on one significant manifestation of this tendency in King Crimson: the pervasive use of the technique of transposition. Example 1 lists a core series of instrumental pieces that are the subject of this study. These works, composed primarily by Robert Fripp, span A 168 Perspectives of New Music over forty years of the band’s career, including contributions from every incarnation of the band since 1973, as well as works taken from the solo career of Fripp.3 The primary analytical tool I employ is transpositional combination (hereafter TC), whereby a pc set is combined with one or more of its transpositions to form a larger set.4 Cohn observes that TC effectively models three techniques, all of which are common in the repertory under study: (1) sequence, with transposed patterns occurring successively in the same voice; (2) planing, with simultaneous transpositions occurring in two or more voices; and (3) canon, with overlapping transpositions in different voices.5 Example 2 provides examples of each of these three techniques in King Crimson’s music. While the relevance of transposition in these passages is obvious, the larger sets generated through TC are indeed significant. For example, the excerpt from “Red” (Example 2a) begins by transposing the “operand” (0235) by T6, or (0235) * 6, yielding the “product” 8-28 (the octatonic collection). “Level Five” (Example 2b) arrives at the same product using a different operand and transposition: (0369) * 7. Title Album Year Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part I Larks’ Tongues in Aspic 1973 Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part II Larks’ Tongues in Aspic 1973 Fracture Starless and Bible Black 1974 Red Red 1974 Breathless Exposure (Robert Fripp) 1979 Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part III Three of a Perfect Pair 1984 All or Nothing I Live! (League of Crafty Guitarists) 1986 All or Nothing II Live! (League of Crafty Guitarists) 1986 Eye of the Needle Live! (League of Crafty Guitarists) 1986 Driving Force Intergalactic Boogie Express (League . . .) 1991 Intergalactic Boogie Express Intergalactic Boogie Express (League . . .) 1991 Larks’ Thrak Intergalactic Boogie Express (League . . .) 1991 VROOOM Thrak 1995 VROOOM VROOOM Thrak 1995 The ConstruKction of Light The ConstruKction of Light 2000 FraKctured The ConstruKction of Light 2000 Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part IV The ConstruKction of Light 2000 Level Five The Power to Believe 2003 Elektrik The Power to Believe 2003 Radical Action Radical Action (To Unseat The Hold of Monkey Mind) 2016 EXAMPLE 1: INSTRUMENTAL PIECES EXAMINED, ALL WORKS PERFORMED BY KING CRIMSON UNLESS NOTED The Sound of Hendrix Playing Bartók 169 “Elektrik” (Example 2c), on the other hand, generates 6-35 (the whole-tone scale) with the operand (0268) through both a sequential series (0268) * 10 and a canonic (0268) * 4 from guitar 2 to guitar 1. These three passages uncover a fundamental scalar strategy in the employment of TC, whereby transpositions are linked to scalar collections. Particularly noteworthy is the presence of whole-tone and octatonic scales, which are otherwise quite rare in rock music. The use of these scales is thus another indication of the music’s progressive impetus, and Fripp has explicitly indicated his interest in the possibilities of “expanding vocabulary.”6 This raises the question of where Fripp might have gotten his idea for generating scales through transposition. Among...