To celebrate the "King"

Progressive-rock - Markus Reuter of the Crimson ProjeKCt on cultivating tradition in rock music.

Mainz - The English band King Crimson has existed since the end of the 60s and, having attained an undisputed cult status, has been the nucleus of the progressive rock movement to this day. In 2011, a few band members launched a six-headed offshoot: The Crimson ProjeKCt. Their German guitar player Markus Reuter tells us what awaits the audience next Sunday at the Frankfurter Hof.

Interview conducted by André de Vos

The performance of the Crimson ProjeKCt includes 3 bands. Can you break that down for us?

The complete The Crimson ProjeKCt show is a 3 hour show where the bands Stick Men and the Adrian Belew Power Trio each play for about 30 to 40 minutes and we also play some King Crimson tracks during our sets. At the end we all play together for about an hour and a half. We present King Crimson material of the 80s and 90s as well as some tracks from the 70s.

Does The Crimson ProjeKCt show how a band like King Crimson is developing dynamically, no matter who plays in the band at that time?

You are right, but in fact with The Crimson ProjeKCt it is so that we did not write new material yet. I would agree completely if The Crimson ProjeKCt had written new material. At the moment it is really a celebration of King Crimson music.

What does "celebration" mean in this context?

The interesting thing is that it does not feel like a cover band and it isn´t a "tribute" band either because original members are involved. Adrian Belew wrote most of the material for King Crimson back in the 80s. And so it doesn’t feel like a cover-band but more like – it’s a stupid word - a party. So it is more a celebration of these pieces, and actually in a more relaxed way, than it was played when Robert Fripp was in the band.

How did you come to be part of The Crimson ProjeKCt? How did that connection happen?

There are two explanations. One is that I have this trio, Stick Men, with bass player Tony Levin and drummer Pat Mastelotto, the other is that when Robert Fripp did not want to go on tour for the last ten years, I was available when Adrian wanted to do a birthday tour for the “Discipline” album from 1981.

Besides that, as a student of Robert Fripp, were you somehow predestined for this job?

At a concert in 1991 I found a flyer for his guitar school and just a few months later I took part in a course with him. All in all I spent seven years with him and also adopted his teachings. The good and interesting thing is that he directly passed to me the way this music is intended to be played and how it should sound and how your inner approach should be for it to sound right.

What does the music of Stick Men contain in relation to The Crimson ProjeKCt?

We play material from our last album “Deep”. It’s music that is very clearly in the tradition of King Crimson, but new material and in a Power Trio format: a small group but with a lot going on musically. We also improvise and play Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird”, which has by now become a “live hit”.

Note: This interview was originally published in "Allgemeine Zeitung" (March/2014).
Translated by Lutz Stahlhofen with revisions by Tobias Reber. (thank you, guys!)

Markus Reuter / Crimson ProjeKCt - between ambience and art-rock revival

Between ambience and art-rock revival

interview to Marian Menge

Back in 2001 this magazine interviewed Markus Reuter, the Lippstadt-born, most successful representative of the touch guitar a first time. Back then his declared goal was to make this exotic instrument more popular because it simply “deserves more musicians”. A glance back into the past and into his current schedule shows that quite a few things must have happened in the last 13 years.


In the meantime he publishes between 10 and 20 releases every year, not only as a playing musician but also as a producer. In 2007 Markus Reuter founded the Touch Guitar Circle, a conspirative group - now counting 30 people - who committed themselves to the exploration of this rather new instrument. But Reuter still stands out creatively and musically. The 41 year old Reuter is not only a pioneer on his instrument but also a creative free thinker who shines as much in electronic-ambience solo sets as well as an orchestra composer. Besides that he also started a career as a progressive rocker a few years ago as member of Tony Levin's Stick Men and, since 2011, as a member of the Crimson ProjeKCt. The latter is a format originally founded by King-Crimson mastermind Robert Fripp, that tours the world since 2012 as a double trio (2x guitar, 2x bass, 2x drums). Lead by guitarist Adrian Belew they play a Best-of-King-Crimson and are coming to Germany for the first time this spring. For that reason we had a phone call with the very busy musician during a studio date in Berlin where he pushed the completion of the soon-to-be-released Crimson ProjeKCt live album. But first we had to ask some questions about his unusual instrument called the Touch Guitar and give the musician Markus Reuter the opportunity to explain his musical approach.

touch guitar

Markus, can you briefly explain the features of the Touch Guitar?

Sure. Basically the touch guitar is a traditional guitar instrument. This is an important point that makes it relatively easy to learn the instrument. It's very traditionally built and the special features can rather be found in the details. You can get the Touch Guitar with 8 or 10 strings and while, from the design perspective, it is optimized for the tapping technique, it allows for all other playing techniques as well. The main differences are the lower string tension and the longer scale length. Therefore playing it feels a bit different to a guitar or bass. Futhermore, the Touch Guitar is tuned in 5th's, and that changes its harmonic response.

How is it tuned exactly?

The lowest note is a Bb, even deeper than a 5-string bass. To the top you reach a high d like on a regular 22-fret guitar. On the 8 string version, six strings are tuned in 5ths, with a minor 3rd and a major 2nd on top. So all in all it's an open tuning consisting only of notes from the F major scale. But there are no open strings on a touch guitar because they are being muted by a damper. So you can't really look at it as an open tuning.

Isn't this 5th tuning a big change for normal guitar players?

I don't have a feeling for this anymore because I’ve been using the tuning since 1991. In the beginning I found it very logical, because my first instrument was a mandolin, and that was tuned in 5ths as well.Nowadays I think that the 4ths tuning is the right one for a standard guitar. To tune a normal guitar in 5ths sounds nice but it also brings great restrictions. With the touch guitar it is different, because you do not only use one hand but eight fingers. I view both my hands together as one big hand now and when you place your eight fingers on the fingerboard in semitone steps you get exactly a 5th.

You did play regular guitar before. What were your beginnings with the Touch Guitar? Educational books or recordings that could provide some orientation didn't exist yet…

I started with a Stick and when I had it for four or five months I took my first course. I was lucky to meet Jim Lampi there, an outstanding player. I'm a good observer and I'm also good at analytical thinking, so I filtered every kind of information I got right from the start and translated it into my own system. And so it was actually a rather fast process. It must be said that, for me, the practicing of technique has nothing to do with making music. They are two different things. You can't expect to play music right from the start, especially with an instrument that has no tradition yet. First you need to discover how to play a beautiful note. The special thing with the Touch Guitar is how to end a note. Every good bass teacher shows you how to dampen the strings you don't play and with the stick and the Touch Guitar nobody had made up his mind about this before. But when it comes to the philosophy of playing, everything centers around this.

When you look at videos and watch how you play the Touch Guitar, one gets the impression that it requires much more delicate movements than a regular guitar.

I wouldn't say it requires it, but my goal is to play the instrument in a very elegant way. You have to consider this: if you were to pick up my instrument you would be surprised how soft it feels. In terms of how it feels it has not a lot in common with a guitar. The whole instrument is really soft. If you tap on a regular guitar and you don't know how you should do it properly you will hit the strings real hard and that is simply not necessary with the Touch Guitar. The dynamic doesn't come from power, this is the big misunderstanding. You think the harder you hit the louder your tone gets but that's not true. The dynamic comes from the acceleration of your finger. The faster your finger accelerates, the louder the tone gets.

You did study free improvisation. Can you tell us something about it?

In fact my studies with professor Lisken in Bielefeld mostly consisted of just spending time with him. That means not only playing with him but also to live with him. In this way I could soak up a lot much of his musical experience, and one or two times a week we would play with him for more than three hours in various personal constellations.

By now you lead courses in "The Psychology Of Creativity".  What do you teach in these classes?

That's a big topic. I try to get the people to first do something and criticize themselves later. That's the central insight that such a course should bring. Everybody has something like an internal communication, everybody has thoughts in his head and is talking to himself. The way you structure these internal conversations have a big influence on what you do in the end. The awareness that you can train and shape these processes is relatively new. You can look at it like this: There's someone in your head who has an idea, a maker who wants to implement the idea, and a critic. So the one with the idea is always in connection with the critic, who talks about it even before anything is done at all. That's a problem. In my courses I try to show people how they can manage to always let this communication happen via the maker.

crimson projekct

Please tell us how your collaboration with the Crimson ProjeKCt came to happen.

That started very early, because I was officially a student of Robert Fripp between 1991 and 1998 and I learned from  him firsthand what was behind the music and howit works on a compositional level. On a train ride from Munich to Bonn back in 2000 I met Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto by chance. We first had loose contact via the internet until we founded the duo Tuner in 2005. Then Tony Levin had the idea for Stick Men where first Michael Bernier was the second stick-player. When he didn't get along with touring anymore I came in to fill the gap. Through all that and through my closeness to Robert Fripp many doors opened. 2011 was the 30th anniversary of King Crimson's "Discipline" record, and on that occasion Adrian Belew wanted to do an anniversary tour. So the idea came up to bring his and our trio together. To have a partly original band where I take Robert Fripp's part, that was something I really wanted to do.

Do you strictly divide it so that Adrian plays his parts and you play Robert's?

Yes, all the time. In some places I do even more than Fripp did, but mostly I play his parts. Well, by now I have modified them slightly. In the beginning I listened closely to the original parts I did not know yet and then made them fit with the rules I had learned from Robert. In the 80s there were a whole lot of guitar parts with 16th note patterns where melodies were hidden underneath certain accents. I worked out these melodies and play them more presently now than it was in the past. In addition to that I am also in charge of the soundscapes.

With you, Tony Levin and Julie Slick there are 3 people on stage who could take the bass parts. How do you work this out?

I take the part of a baritone guitar while Tony and Julie play the bass parts. This means I play Robert’s part but often one octave lower. With Stick Men it is different. There are pieces where I play bass and Tony plays the melody.

This sounds like rather strictly designed arrangements. How much room is left for your own ideas in the music of King Crimson?

Within the songs there is always room for improvisations, but mostly in the details. Other than that, there are solo parts that are completely improvised.

With this material it is absolutely necessary to hold back the energy. You need to apply the brakes all the time and only let it go at certain moments, because that builds up the power of the songs.

Can you describe your setup in short terms?

I keep it simply for these kinds of shows. I use the Line 6 Pod HD 500. From there it goes through a DI to the PA and to my monitor speaker. So I don't use an amp on stage but use the monitor as an amp even for feedback interaction and such. This monitor signal splits up again and goes through an audio interface to my laptop where I trigger my ambience parts with my Ableton-Live setup. That gives me the option to apply special effects to my guitar tone, but I almost never do that.

Does a Touch Guitar not work so well with an amp, or why is it you don't use one?

The Touch Guitar is a full range instrument, so you always need to make concessions somewhere. When I used a guitar amp it did not work well with the power the signal has. That's a pity because I really like the Fender sound, but it simply doesn't work. With an Ampeg SVT I got along better because the deep frequencies come out better and the high frequencies were acceptable. But over the years I had learned that the easier and the more comfortable to carry the equipment, the better. 

internet

www.markusreuter.com

www.touchguitars.com

Note: This interview was originally published in "Gitarre & Bass" magazine (March/2014).
Thanks to Lutz Stahlhofen for the translation and to Tobias Reber for the revision.