Trey Gunn (born December 13, 1960) is an American musician, known for his membership in the progressive rock band

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

from 1994 to 2003, playing

Warr Guitar The Warr Guitar is an American-made touch guitar, a type of instrument that combines both bass and melodic strings on a single fretboard. It is related to the Chapman Stick, another two-handed tapping instrument. The Warr guitar is designed for ...

and

Chapman Stick The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines ...

Biography

A native

Texan Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by b ...

who now resides in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, Gunn began his musical life at the age of seven playing classical piano. His interest in music grew through various instruments: electric bass, electric and acoustic guitar, keyboards, and the touch guitar. He moved to

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census, ...

, and played in punk bands while he completed a degree in classical music composition at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc Nike, Inc. ( or ) is a ...

. He then moved to New York City, where his professional career began. He spent some time as a student of Guitar Craft with founder

Robert Fripp Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a sessio ...

and appeared on several Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists recordings. From 1988 to 1991, he toured playing

in the UK and Europe, with

Toyah Willcox Toyah Ann Willcox (born 18 May 1958) is an English musician, actress, and TV presenter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Willcox has had eight top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays an ...

, Robert Fripp and Paul Beavis, at first under the band project name "Fripp, Fripp" who by the second tour became Sunday All Over the World. They recorded and released one album in 1991 entitled ''Kneeling at the Shrine''. In the same year and with the SAOTW line up, he also played stick on the solo Toyah album ''Ophelia's Shadow'', produced by Toyah who was to later guest on his album, '' The Third Star''. In 1992, he was asked to join

David Sylvian David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...

and

in a collaborative project that toured the United States, Europe, and Japan. The band released ''The First Day'' and ''Damage'' – a live recording from the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...

in London. During this period, Gunn also recorded his first solo album ''One Thousand Years''. In 1992 and 1993 with Fripp, Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya, and Paul Richards, he toured and recorded as The Robert Fripp String Quintet. In 1994, Gunn joined King Crimson. With King Crimson he played Chapman Stick and subsequently diverse types of Warr guitar and was part of the "double trio" formation opposite Tony Levin. In 1997, King Crimson fragmented into smaller configurations known as the ProjeKcts. Gunn, along with Fripp, participated in all of the ProjeKcts performances and recordings. In 1999, the group mutated into a four-piece – Belew, Fripp, Gunn and Mastelotto. He left Crimson after "The Power to Believe" tour in 2003. Over the course of his decade with the group, he participated in thirty-three King Crimson CDs, two DVDs and hundreds of performances. He has also performed and recorded with a number of other musicians:

Tool A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates b ...

, Puscifer,

Sean Malone Sean Malone (April 12, 1970 – December 7, 2020) was an American musician who played primarily fretless bass guitar and Chapman Stick. He was most famous for his work with progressive metal band Cynic, in which he developed a strong partn ...

and

Gordian Knot The Gordian Knot is an Ancient Greek legend of Phrygian Gordium associated with Alexander the Great who is said to have cut the knot in 333 BC. It is often used as a metaphor for an intractable problem (untying an impossibly tangled knot) sol ...

Vernon Reid Vernon Alphonsus Reid (born 22 August 1958) is an English-born American guitarist and songwriter. Reid is the founder and primary songwriter of the rock band Living Colour, Reid was named No. 66 on ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's 2003 list of the ...

John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...

, Eric Johnson,

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Azam Ali Azam Ali ( fa, اعظم علی) is an Iranian peoples, Iranian musician. As of 2013, she has released eight full-length albums with the bands Vas (band), VAS and Niyaz, as well as four solo albums. Biography She was born in Tehran on 3 October ...

Matt Chamberlain Matthew Chamberlain (born April 17, 1967) is an American session musician, drummer, producer and songwriter. Biography Life and career Chamberlain was born in San Pedro, California on April 17, 1967. He began learning how to play the drums ...

Michael Brook Michael Brook (born 1951) is a Canadian guitarist, inventor, music producer, and film music composer. He plays in many genres, including rock, electronica, world music, minimalism and film scores. His collaborations with musicians around the worl ...

Bill Rieflin William Frederick Rieflin (September 30, 1960 – March 24, 2020) was an American musician. Rieflin came to prominence in the 1990s mainly for his work as a drummer with groups (particularly in the industrial rock and industrial metal scene ...

, David Hykes of the Harmonic Choir and many more. He has released a number of solo albums, as Trey Gunn and as the leader of The Trey Gunn Band. Years of working with broad-necked instruments like the Warr guitar affected Gunn physically and he had to seek less damaging playing methods for his artistic expression. This has led him to working with the guitar in a horizontal position across the lap and to the practice of Aikido and Brazilian Jui-Jitsu. In 2003, Gunn founded the multi-media group Quodia with Joe Mendelson where he contributed more vocals than in previous projects and less Warr guitar. In 2004, he and Pat Mastelotto started collaborating with

Kimmo Pohjonen Kimmo Pohjonen (born August 16, 1964) is a Finnish accordionist who is known for his avant-garde and experimental work with his custom-made electrified and modified instrument. He has released nine albums of his work and has toured Europe extens ...

and

Samuli Kosminen Edea is a Finnish musical group. The Edea's song lyrics are written in an older form of the Finnish language and speak of old traditions as well. The mysterious runic symbols inscribed on the bows of Viking boats, door posts, drinking vessels, and ...

, forming KTU out of their respective duos TU and Kluster. In 2012, he began working with

Jerry Marotta Jerome David Marotta (born February 6, 1956, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American drummer who resides in Woodstock, New York. He is the younger brother of Rick Marotta, who is also a drummer and composer. Career Marotta was a member of the bands ...

in the group The Security Project. In addition to helping run a label based in Seattle called 7d Media, he is currently dividing his time between his solo work, film and television scoring, coaching artists in the creative process at Original Voice Coaching and building multi-dimensional media projects.

Discography

Solo albums

*''Playing with Borrowed Time'' (1985) (cassette) *''One Thousand Years'' (1993) *''The Third Star'' (1996) *''Raw Power'' (1999) *''The Joy of Molybdenum'' (2000) *''Live Encounter'' (2001) *''Road Journals'' (CD-ROM) (2002) *''Untune The Sky'' (CD/DVD) (2003) (compilation) *''Music for Pictures'' (2008) *''Modulator'' (2010) *''I'll Tell What I Saw'' (2010) (compilation) *''The Waters, They Are Rising'' (2015) *''Punkt 1'' (2020) *''Firma'' (2020) *''Life on Hisarü 9'' (2020) (with Markus Reuter)

Score Books

*''Trey Gunn - Scores'' (2014) *''King Crimson - THRAK'' (2017) (full band transcriptions + tabs) *''King Crimson - The Discipline Era Transcriptions'' (2020) (full band transcriptions + tabs)

With others

References

External links

Trey Gunn homepage

Trey Gunn downloads page

Trey Gunn - Original Voice Coaching page

7d Media homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunn, Trey King Crimson members 1960 births People from Texas Living people Chapman Stick players American rock guitarists American male guitarists University of Oregon alumni Crafty guitarists 20th-century American guitarists American aikidoka American practitioners of Brazilian jiu-jitsu Inside Out Music artists Gordian Knot (band) members