Andrew Keeling
Autor de Musical Guide to Larks' Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson
Obras de Andrew Keeling
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Género
- male
Miembros
Reseñas
Analysis for the 50th Anniversary of the Prog Rock Classic
Review of the Spaceward paperback (2019), the expanded 2nd edition of "Musical Guide to In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson" (2010)
The Musical Guide 10/50 Edition is a revised version after 10 years of the first edition "to correct some grammatical errors" and to "make reference to King Crimson Mk I's 'live' work." The release of the new edition also falls on the 50th anniversary release of the original album (Oct. 10, 1969). A new Appendix 1 thus covers several of the recorded live performances of the original 1969 group. An Appendix 2 covers the early music of Michael Giles and Greg Lake (the drummer and vocalist/bass of the original group).
Fifty years has not diminished the force of the original 1969 album which was labelled "an uncanny masterpiece" at the time by Pete Townsend of The Who. The album is dominated by 3 doom-laden multi-tracked epics ("21st Century Schizoid Man", "Epitaph", "In the Court of the Crimson King") with relief provided by 2 interspersed lighter melodic works ("I Talk to the Wind" "Moonchild"). The overall theme is a vision of a dystopian future with escape only possible through hope in nature and love. It is thus of the hippie era but is not nostalgic about it.
Andrew Keeling does an overwhelming job in providing not only the historical background and evolution of the original group, but by also providing a serious in-depth musical analysis of each of the compositions and recordings. These are often very specific in their analysis of musical keys, chords and instrumentation. Historical musical terminology is often used, so you would be well advised to keep a musical dictionary or access to wikipedia handy. Pro-tip, you might as well learn the term ritornello (recurring musical theme of a song/composition) before you even begin the book, as it occurs several dozen times.
So why a [4.5]? Well only due to some copy-editing errors which were still not fixed despite the goal of corrections in this second edition. Also, the brief description of the free-jazz group The Music Improvisation Company which included future King Crimson member Jamie Muir is almost completely inaccurate as personnel such as composer Gavin Bryars and drummer John Stevens were never members. The group is also misnamed as the "Music Improvisation Society" (sic) on page 81. That is admittedly very esoteric, but it lets down the team to see something so easily fact checked get by the author and proofreaders.
Trivia and Links
The continued level of fan interest in the 1969 album and group can be seen in the number of merchandise items in the group's Schizoid Shop, such as:
Various memorabilia at https://shop.schizoidshop.com/in-the-court-of-the-crimson-king-c225.aspx
Historical 1969 rarities and live recordings boxed as https://shop.schizoidshop.com/king-crimson---epitaph-vol-123--4-box-set-p167.asp...… (más)
Review of the Spaceward paperback (2019), the expanded 2nd edition of "Musical Guide to In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson" (2010)
Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools. - excerpted lyrics from Epitaph by Peter Sinfield.
The Musical Guide 10/50 Edition is a revised version after 10 years of the first edition "to correct some grammatical errors" and to "make reference to King Crimson Mk I's 'live' work." The release of the new edition also falls on the 50th anniversary release of the original album (Oct. 10, 1969). A new Appendix 1 thus covers several of the recorded live performances of the original 1969 group. An Appendix 2 covers the early music of Michael Giles and Greg Lake (the drummer and vocalist/bass of the original group).
Fifty years has not diminished the force of the original 1969 album which was labelled "an uncanny masterpiece" at the time by Pete Townsend of The Who. The album is dominated by 3 doom-laden multi-tracked epics ("21st Century Schizoid Man", "Epitaph", "In the Court of the Crimson King") with relief provided by 2 interspersed lighter melodic works ("I Talk to the Wind" "Moonchild"). The overall theme is a vision of a dystopian future with escape only possible through hope in nature and love. It is thus of the hippie era but is not nostalgic about it.
Andrew Keeling does an overwhelming job in providing not only the historical background and evolution of the original group, but by also providing a serious in-depth musical analysis of each of the compositions and recordings. These are often very specific in their analysis of musical keys, chords and instrumentation. Historical musical terminology is often used, so you would be well advised to keep a musical dictionary or access to wikipedia handy. Pro-tip, you might as well learn the term ritornello (recurring musical theme of a song/composition) before you even begin the book, as it occurs several dozen times.
So why a [4.5]? Well only due to some copy-editing errors which were still not fixed despite the goal of corrections in this second edition. Also, the brief description of the free-jazz group The Music Improvisation Company which included future King Crimson member Jamie Muir is almost completely inaccurate as personnel such as composer Gavin Bryars and drummer John Stevens were never members. The group is also misnamed as the "Music Improvisation Society" (sic) on page 81. That is admittedly very esoteric, but it lets down the team to see something so easily fact checked get by the author and proofreaders.
Trivia and Links
The continued level of fan interest in the 1969 album and group can be seen in the number of merchandise items in the group's Schizoid Shop, such as:
Various memorabilia at https://shop.schizoidshop.com/in-the-court-of-the-crimson-king-c225.aspx
Historical 1969 rarities and live recordings boxed as https://shop.schizoidshop.com/king-crimson---epitaph-vol-123--4-box-set-p167.asp...… (más)
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 10
- Miembros
- 39
- Popularidad
- #376,657
- Valoración
- 3.8
- Reseñas
- 2
- ISBNs
- 10
Review of the Spaceward paperback edition (2010)
I was sufficiently impressed with Keeling's analysis of the 1969 prog rock classic In the Court of the Crimson King to seek out his analysis of the 1970 follow-up albums. This second book leans heavily on the musical analysis and score transcriptions though and has less of the story of the musicians behind the scenes. That makes it of less interest for the general reader but possibly still a must-have for musically literate fans.
As in the first book, there is great amount of musical terminology that is used, but this time there is a glossary that is provided. For some reason, the word anacrusis seemed to be the most commonly used, so you should familiarize yourself with that one before even starting.
The transcriptions go so far as to present a complete score of the "In the Wake of Poseidon" track aside from the excerpts of passages from other works, so that is pretty impressive. You'll need to photo enlarge the book's images by 400 to 1000% though before you would have a usable copy however.… (más)