Eye of the Needle
A BRIEF HISTORY
During the first Level Two in December 1985 I began to hear a particular arpeggiated figure moving out virally through the house. It had a very specific flavor, and was catching the interest of many. I did not make a great effort to learn it, as I already had a lot on my plate. So when the moment came in a rehearsal to hear what this might be and where it might be going, I was a little behind the curve. The piece unfolded over a couple of days. Robert would present the working form. We would play it back for him. He’d tweak it. We’d play the tweaked version back. He would add a new part. We’d play it back with the new part added. He’d drop it, until the next meeting when he would present the next incarnation of the working form. Clearly, this was a piece that was burning to find its way out into the world.
Once complete, it involved an Intro in 13, rhythmically divided as 3+3+3+4. The main theme, which moved through a series of tonal centers, was similar to the intro, but in 4/4, rhythmically divided as 3+3+3+7. It had a simple, but deceptively difficult, 3-note motif for the bass line. There was a repeating five note pattern that rolled through particular sections. And it ended with 4 and 5 polyrhythmic figure through an ascending series of tonal centers.
Compositions emerging on that course tended to get one syllable names – Jig, Thrak, Darts – and this one was dubbed “Spikes”. The rhythmic divisions were primarily at the top of short descending arpeggios, and so the first note of each tended to poke out. This “spiky” effect was further highlighted by the use of accented picking, each rhythmic division beginning with a downstroke:
1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2 1-2 for the intro figure in 13, and
1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2 1-2 for the primary theme
Another primary feature of the composition was the extensive use of the Finger Pivot, including one particularly hazardous fourth finger pivot and a very tricky 3-string sequence. Over the first year or so, as the piece evolved into its ultimate form, both accented picking and the use of the pivot were phased out of the conventional presentation in favor of strict alternate picking and work-around left hand fingerings for same-fret notes on adjacent strings. The reasons were purely practical. It is a composition that requires gentle precision. The interlocking of the various parts is lost when played by a group that is having a difficulty staying in time or accurately articulating the notes. The Finger Pivot, itself, while it remains one of the Seven Primary Exercises, now tends to be presented as a fingering option for specific circumstances, rather than a broad practice. The result of the use of the pivot in this piece, applied by players who are not skilled with it, is a general inaccuracy and sloppiness in the timing and articulation of the phrases. Accented picking can also lead to timing inaccuracies, as well as encouraging a tendency to overplay the high notes in the rhythmic divisions – “hammer hands” in Guitar Craft vernacular – which gave the composition its original “spiky” flavor.
One perpetual source of discussion is the matter of downstrokes vs alternate picking on the running 5s (sometimes referred to as the “burbles”) and in the Coda. For many years Europeans and South Americans tended toward the downstroke for both, while North Americans favored alternate picking. I think it could be pretty much boiled down to “it depends on who you learned it from; Hernan or Curt.” Current practice is alternate picking for the running lines, but downstrokes for the Coda.
The composition continued to be identified as Spikes until “Live!” was completed. We first heard the test pressing during the second Level Two at Claymont in April 1986, but in my journal for that course I am still referring to the piece as “Spikes”. We gathered in the Library to listen to the record and have a look at the album art. On the track listing, halfway through Side One, was something called “Guitar Craft Theme III: Eye of the Needle”. I had no idea what that might be until I heard it.
The version of Eye of the Needle that appeared on that first Level Two course was rudimentary. The elements were all there, but between 1986 and 1990 it underwent a continual evolution before finding its final form. In 2002 I was heavily involved in teaching repertoire to Guitar Craft circles, and a lot of my work was to correct errors in the way much of it was being played. I spearheaded a Special Project to transcribe and notate as much of that material as possible. These transcriptions formed the basis for “Seven Guitar Craft Themes” which was published in 2011. It includes the arrangement for Eye of the Needle found on “Live II” and “Intergalactic Boogie Express” (ignoring the error in the bass line), which are now considered to be canonical.
In researching Eye of the Needle for this project, I listened to a lot of authorized, private, and bootleg recordings of the piece through the years:
December 1985. The first recording of Eye of the Needle appeared on “Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists, Live!”, recorded on December 15, at the final performances of the first Level Two. The piece had appeared during the second week of that course. This is Eye of the Needle in its most rudimentary form. The 13/4 Intro is only played in the basic A Minor configuration and then the piece transitions directly to the 4/4 theme in A Minor. While the bass players were spared the difficult descending line that later evolved, the transition from 13 to 4 was, for them/us, challenging, with the first anticipated C-D-E coming at the end of the bar of 13. There is also no return to 13 after the long F#. The piece is pretty brisk, about 70-72bpm, although it is possible that at least some of that was performance adrenaline. The 5 against 4 polyrhythm of the Coda is entirely ascending through the chord changes, with the basses playing a quietly pulsing in 5.
December 1986. The next recording I have is from a radio broadcast on December 6, 1986 at WMMR in Philadelphia; part of a short tour we did during the course at Claymont that took place just after we returned from the first Level Three in Dorset. It was a large performance team, about 30. The arrangement is substantially the same as “Live!”; much slower (~64bpm) and the bass part now includes 4-note pattern descending through the changes in the Coda.
April 1987. “The League of Locals”. This Washington/Baltimore-based group was the very first local or regional Guitar Circle. The tape comes from a small studio recording project we did of the then-current League repertoire. The arrangement of Eye of the Needle is identical to the WMMR recording, the tempo again in the low 60s.
August 1987. “The New York Chapter of the League of Crafty Guitarists”. The second local Guitar Circle established. This performance is from a show at Washington Square Church in NYC. Brisk, ~74bpm (somewhat faster by the end). The same arrangement as WMMR and League of Locals, although a player leaping to the high octave for the middle A Minor section is audible.
[So, from December 1985 through August 1987, the arrangement remained virtually unchanged, with some variations in the tempo chosen by the various performance groups. Then…]
March 1988. The next example comes from two live performances at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA on March 15, 1988. This was part of a short east coast tour. Our next stop was NYC, to tape a show for VH-1. The recording of the complete first show is an audience bootleg tape. The recording of the second show is incomplete. There is no audible audience and sounds like a board tape. In both cases Eye of the Needle is back to a much slower tempo; close to 60bpm. There are four changes in this version that bring it nearly to the final form:
º The Intro in 13/4 has been expanded to modulate through the A-C-A-F# sequence.
º The A Minor Interlude is now in 13/4 rather than 4/4.
º On both the Intro and Interlude the descending Dorian bass line, played with the thumb, has been added.
º The high octave melody makes its first definite appearance as a “part” here, playing through the Intro including the harmonies on the 3rd bar.
[“Get Crafty” was recorded in late 1988. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a version of Eye of the Needle on the
cutting room floor but it doesn’t show up on my tape of rough mixes.]
[1989 was the year of the “Bogo Tour”, Though the piece was in the revolving repertoire, I only have a recording
of the final show in Atlanta, and Eye of the Needle was not in the set.]June 1990. “Show of Hands”. Virtually the same arrangement as the 1988 Muhlenberg recording. In the 66bpm range. There is a low C# on just the final bar of F#, just before the Interlude. The low octave doubling on the descending bass line in the Interlude is quite audible. In the Coda for this recording the 4s seem to have been relegated to the descending pattern, with the 5s ascending.
August 1990. Central Park, August 4. Bootleg recording. Tempo is back up to 72bpm. Other than the tempo, the arrangement is as “Show of Hands”, including the single low C#.
October 1990. “Live II”, made from the board tape of a performance in Canada. ~72bpm seems to have been the target tempo for the 1990 tour. Again, largely the same arrangement, except that the piece is introduced by the solo guitar on the high octave for the first two figures of 13, with the other melody players joining in at the 3rd repetition of the figure at the same time that the descending bass line comes in. The low C# in the bass of the F# section is now played for the final 3 bars. The high octave part clearly ends on a high E here. Either Robert had a guitar with a 21st fret added, or an exceptionally hard and accurate callus on his finger. Another possibility is that it is a harmonic. Or it’s a psychoacoustic quirk.
March 1991. “Intergalactic Boogie Express”, recorded on the League tour of Europe. Once again, essentially the same arrangement as “Live II”, including the solo high octave guitar in the Introduction and the non-existent high E at the end. This recording contains one peculiar error; the wrong descending bass line in the middle 13 section. I can only assume that this performance team simply adopted this in rehearsal and ran with it for the tour. Since the part is doubled by several players it seems unlikely that it was just a clam on this performance. My only other recording from that tour is a bootleg from Paris, and that set did not include Eye of the Needle.
October 2009. “Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists II”. An OCG Prep course near Seattle. The weekly “Tuning the Air” performance was to take place that Thursday, and it was decided to activate the “prep” participants and make the show a full Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists performance. The final encore is Eye of the Needle, played in the familiar and established form. However, during the week leading up to the show, the exercise of The Guitarist Inside as it is specifically applied to Eye of the Needle was presented. This practice brings a new dimension to the performance of the piece, and to the best of my knowledge OCG II was the first time it was performed with this aspect formally included as an established part of the composition. Two long-time Crafty Guitarists in the audience specifically commented that there was “something new” in this performance of the piece.
Curt Golden
recordings originally compiled and annotated November 2002
additional recordings added and text updated April 2016