With the passing of time I noticed that - in the mass of email messages that I get on a certain basis (not as many as you might think but many more than I would have ever imagined!) there is a conspiquous amount of text that contains pretty much the same questions. Considering that a big page of my life can be considered turned in some terms, I wanted to gather some of the most frequent questions and details in this part of my site.

I understand that some of you might consider this the tiniest, most useless part of the web but for some reason - which should be asked to those who read and not to the one who writes - I have the feeling that some others are going to have a lot of fun reading this ASCII digression.

Beware: Be prepared to face lots of " ", - -, ( ), and too few ¶ (new paragraphs!, not 3.14..!) ..oh, and TYPOS!

Carlos Campos (who has been my teacher in these years at Musician Institute) once told me that "the student attitude" is probably the best you can ever have in your life as a musician: considering yourself as someone who "has arrived" somewhere in music makes you loose focus and humility, therefore preventing you from evolving as a musical mind.

This was part of his answer to my question, being: "what happens and how do you feel the moment your formal training finishes? and is there such a moment?". I guess I wrote this to explain how I feel now. My formal training has come - inevitably - to an end with my graduation from MI here in Los Angeles and while confessing that I have my twisted plans to continue studying by myself I must say that nothing feels exactly the same after 11 years of constant lessons etc.

Getting back on topic (btw this is a small present you get for reading this far, since I can pretty much digress for as long as I want here..) here is what I see when I turn back at the time I begun studying music:

First of all, before I forget: NO, noone in the family was or is a musician..just a very supportive family (and a person with a strong and determined passion, which is me). Private lessons in modern and classical piano from 1994 to somewhen in 1995-96. My teachers were husband and wife, by the name of Roberto de Certo and Elisa Capocchia. Great teachers and good people, even if I wasn't studying that much sometimes. Things I remember from these years: technique was easy, improvising was iMPOSSIBLE (I thought I could have never improvised in my life), I had my first espresso coffee during a lesson and I got all nervous and shaky (good old caffeine! forgive me for not loving you at the time!), I subscribed to the italian copyrights protection society (yup, SIAE) and took the admission test in a small room in their offices near the famous Dome in Firenze. I also remember the first gigs with my band in Tuscany countryside, where we were playing for a pizza or some pasta! Rehearsals were awesome: nobody knew anything (or very little) about his instrument so there was no way anyone could bash or limit the other person by saying "do this and do that". It might seem stupid but this was one of the best, fertile enviroments we could have ever been at that time!

From 1996 to 2002 I studied with Filippo Martelli (touring keyboardist for Raf, Laura Pausini, Marco Masini and other great italian pop artists). I think it was around 2001 that I started studying classical piano more seriously with M.o Giuseppe Tanzini. Things I remember of those years: my great friendship with Filippo, the times I followed him during tours, recordings and band rehearsals. I also remember my Solfeggio exams at the Conservatory (wanna talk about something scary and the definition of "badass"? :)) I remember my high school years and the following ones as a university student..can you believe that? I wasn't doing bad at all btw! I also remember being screwed up for a job by someone who I thought it was a good friend of mine and I also remember...my trip to Amsterdam! (wait, do I remember that?)

From 2002 to 2005 things are not too "black and white" but hey, lots of strong moments in my family, with my girlfriend, with new-found friends (including the great Dann Glenn, whose spirit, strenght and character are still a reference to me, thanks for everything Dann..you were right!)

I think those were the years where I had to leap and just leap, you know like when you are on the trampoline in your swimming pool and there is nothing else to do but jump into the water.

So here I am now I guess: in the water I was looking from above years ago..and let me tell you: it feels deep, that's true..but it also feels really warm.

I already said I couldn't care less about music when I was a kid..seriously I was the kind of kid that had to invent something to come up with an answer to the "what's your favourite music?" question. I know there can be others like me, if you are out there, please let me know!!

Things changed when I started to play and got all turned on to keyboardists etc. so I guess I can now sincerely point out the following list of people who influenced me along my musical path until now..most definitely there are going to be hundreds more in the near future but, for the moment I'd say I like Andy Summers, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Prince, Medeski Martin and Woods, Mike Finnegan, Joey de Francesco, Jimmy Smith, Pat Martino, Dan Ross, Nils Petter Molvaer, AIR, Mark Mothersbaum, Alva Noto, Jeff Beck, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Benny Golson, Michael Brecker, Dann Glenn and Jeff Berlin, Michael Manring, Brian Bromberg, Steve Vai, Brett Garsed, Derek Sherinian and Planet X, Jens Johansson, Jordan Rudess' solo stuff (especially Rudess/Morgenstein Project), Liquid Tension Experiment, FourPlay, Eddie Jobson, Allan Holdsworth, Al di Meola, Dave Weckl, Steve Weingart, David Sancious, Eminem, U2, some stuff by REM, some Frank Zappa, Chet Baker, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kip Winger, Michel Petrucciani (I absolutely love his playing) and Sting. Oh yes, I absolutely love Sting's music maybe over everything else. Well this is a partial list but, shouldn't we move on?

There are dozens of names coming out of my mind while I write the previous ones..but I guess I will stop here for now ;)

Uneuclydean Expressions was recorded in 1998/1999 entirely with a K2500x and a Mac with Digital Performer. It was mixed and mastered outside of my home studio though.

Feelings Unnoticed was recorded in a couple weeks, Fall 2002. I was lucky enough to be endorsed by PostPiano and I used their Grandioso Steinway library, with Gigasampler on a dedicated PC and Logic on my Macintosh. Still played on my K2500x.

Those three piano songs (which make the demo "Touch") were recorded using my K2500x (beloved Piano Expansion Board!) and Logic. They were ALL recorded on the fly with a couple hours of preparation before each track. Pretty impressive to say the truth, at least considering my wanky pianistic skills and almost NO midi editing, guys (as - I have to say that - usual for me).

The songs from the "Rock Fusion" demo see the gorgeous appearance of my Clavia rig (these keyboards really kick some serious behind!). Nord Lead 3 and Nord Electro 2. The marvellous drums sound is all from Natural Studio KIT7. That's right: even the snare sound you hear in Horizon and those great toms and cymbals come from Natural Studio KIT7. Those recordings were made on a PC laptop on Cubase SX 3 and a Tascam US-122. I know that most of you - while reading this - said "PC recording stuff sucks" somewhere along the line..but you might want to take it back (at least I did). Again it is a proof that - no matter what you have - is how you use it that matters (and THAT is valid for other stuff than music, right?). Another common question: what did you use to load NSKIT? Native Instruments Battery, which is still to me the best for drums libraries you can get..damn cheap as well considering what it does (multiple outputs for drum parts = COOL).

With this same rig I also recorded "The gateway", my collaboration for Cory's project: "The Frame". I can't remember what I used for the "Midnight Orbit" bass sound, however (too lazy to go look), but that was made at the time of my K2500x/Logic/Mac rig.

Another common question: have I used any external effects to my Nord Lead 3 patches (especially lead sounds)? yes and no. Yes: I used a LXP-5 for delays on my leads and No: I did not use a JD10, although I had two of them (along with various other junky stuff). I tried the JD10 with the Nord Lead and I got some AWESOME sounds, really, but then I managed to use the Nord Lead without it and I got the same patches with even better results (read: expression, character, body, etcetc.). Bass sounds? Nord Lead 3 or Organ bass from the Nord Electro 2. You are right.

Another important thing I am happy about: NO MIDI on all those "Rock Fusion" demos. I mean it drastically: I did not have midi cables in my studio so I recorded everything audio directly..now this led to some latency issues which led to bad comments about my sense of timing (which might even be WAY WORSE than that, btw) but everything was fixed afterwards and the bad mp3s were replaced (at least, I think!). I must thank Jens and Anders Johansson along with Allan Holdsworth for making such great music and allowing me to play a little over it (in the hope they did not feel offended by my miserable results compared to theirs). Same goes to Brett Garsed and TJ Helmerich for their taste and skills in making other great music (which led to my keyboard transcription of Loch Rannoch solo by Brett).

For my video scoring projects, that's another story: those were made in MI and I used PowerMac G5s, Edirol controllers and Logic 6/7 (lots of Logic virtual instruments and lots of sound libraries).

In April 2005 I caught some good chances on the fly and I added a Korg Trinity and a Roland JD-800 to my rig (which where then lately sold again). Wonderful synthesizers..the way they sound confirms me that there is no need to spend thousands of dollars on new keyboards..they just don't cut it as these old ones do. But that's just my 2 cents, you are free to misbelieve until you hear the results :)

oh and yes: I did copy-paste from my messageboard.

05/25/06 update: Some new tunes are available and they still refer to older fake album titles such as "Rock/Fusion" etc. - still: they do not feature the same exact rig. Considering how beautifully my Nord Stage sounds, it is almost a must for me to specify that:

The CSI NY remake I did features a lot of Nord Lead 3 and Stage sounds; Irony features my Nord Stage for its piano sound (the regular Yamaha C7 close v2.1 sample set) and my Nord Lead 3 for that GR-300 emulation lead sound; Rebel Wings features my Nord Stage for those synth moogish sounds and for those growly and grindy organ pads. The electric guitar patch comes from Logic Sculpture but it's layered with a lead sound I made on my Nord Lead 3. Drums are still NSKIT7. I recorded all the tracks dry from my Stage but then I didn't like the reverbs I was getting from Logic, so I ended up re-recording those tracks with their onboard reverb effects. Same goes for Irony piano effects, which was directly bounced from the Stage to the audio track. Actually, the whole track was improvised (exception made for the theme).

This is another one that is getting more and more popular these days. I received four similar emails only in the last week, so let's give it some bells and whistles: Tadaaaaa

THE CUSTOM STANDS THREAD! oh beautiful! oh sublime! oh superhuman! finally all the hidden secrets nobody ever told you..or probably just a lot words and no real sense..let's find it out together, by reading the next lines!

People keep asking me about Vali-X Scarab stands..lots of questions, just a couple easy explanations:

The Scarab stand idea was born one day while talking to a dear friend of mine: gave him some ideas about the general concept and we slowly put it into something more real than we could have imagined. Provided his skills, resources and time he built me a prototype for just the heck of having fun with it. He decided to go on and improve it before releasing to the general public but patents obligations and routines, resources, time schedules etc. drove him off this task. As a result there is no official situation on Scarab supports and nothing can be really said but that the idea is still going to be developed in an unknown, close-or-far future. The idea behind the stand was for it to be able to rotate and tilt while holding one keyboard (my Nord Lead 3 premiered the inauguration). A lot still needs to be done and who knows what will be actually done.

Pictures of it? no. There aren't any available because this friend of mine explicitly told me not to show it to the public as he was afraid of having his idea stolen. Nobody ever saw it but a few selected personalities :) and please do not ask me to release pictures "just for your private and discrete eye".

As of yet there are no plans of releasing or resuming work on the stand so everything is ON PAUSE, therefore replying to "how it works" is pretty useless in my opinion. The overall idea was to have a stand that could tilt, rotate and fold into something not that taller than 2 feet. I am NOT related to the manufacturer in any way so there is no way I can give you a free Scarab just by asking me..in fact: they do not exist yet! Also if you contacted them and they did not reply or the site is down or "why there are no more updates on the situation" etc. please understand that by contacting me about these matters nothing is going to get solved or brought up to speed (except maybe for email accounts).

Another die-hard topic is related to my custom Ultimate stands. I am not endorsed by Ultimate Support nor represent their products in any way: it is just something I like to use because I think it is good and better than other stuff, period.

I would not be the person and the musician I am without the people who loved me in all these years and that means my family and my girlfriend.

Nobody ever asked me the complete list of people I studied with, but I will act like I received a lot of requests for this and I will list them more or less randomly..in all sincerity I have no way of finding out who was the one who gave me the most. Please note that the list could be considered partial but I wanted to keep the occasional master classes and seminars out. I do not like to put one-time experiences as they were something consistent and formative..yes I had great moments of musical enlightenment (Brett Garsed and Kenny Werner were two of the greatest ones) but I wanted to list here the more consistent-in-time mentors I had:

For the italian period:

For the american period:

as a constant figure of "non-teacher", great guide and friend who supported me and helped me in my travelling, both physical and musical, I have to thank Dann Glenn for all the great conversations we had and for the time he spent next to me with his great presence and spirit. It is very true that physical distance can do little to hold the light and beauty of great persons.

• freeware software that works
• machines who do a 1/10th of the standard 10 times better
• Family Guy
• curiousity
• people who do not always listen to music and put music every time it is supposed to "be cool"
• 2001: a space odyssey
• people who are sincere with themselves
• people who behave so badly that I can understand what would be the right thing to do by just inverting their actions and beliefs
• respect, but not in the mob kind of way, more in the..well you won't understand :)
• people who, in friends company, do not take an instrument and start playing it pretending not to pretend attention but pretending to be heard. and sometimes pretending to be the "lonely" ones who sit outside on the bench and sing about their stuff.
• coherence
• Tuscany hills
• people who do not always talk about music, musicians, bands, technique exercises, solos, virtuosity.
• ATA cases with your name printed on it (making you look pro)
• positive and humble attitudes
• tea if I am about to play, coffee for every other time
• old synthesizers which sound amazing
• playing the right note at the right moment with the right feel
• mantaining what is mentioned above for as much as it is needed
• understanding when it is no more needed

I chose MI because it has an approach to music studies which is interesting and stimulating to me not to forget two important elements: the amazing musicians teaching in the school and the possibility of sharing life, customs and experiences with people from all over the world. Broadening your musical and human sight is really important for me. The fact that I recommend the school or not to anyone is completely futile: what I recommend you is to give the best and push your improvement to the max as it's the only way to really nail down and absorb the elements for becoming a professional musician. From this point up choosing one school or the other is secondary, there are lots of institutes that can give you all the elements to improve your skills, but it's how you relate with yourself that is important in my opinion.

What am I going to write..an essay on modern society? What is this space going to become..a group therapy bulletin board? well no rest assured, none of this (although it has some mental institutes similarieties right? :))

In the last couple of days I noticed that a lot of people talk about emulation and status-symbol. This directly goes on top of the actual emulation process which seems to run independent from its analysis. As a matter of fact I've seen the whole emulation phenomenon being exploited more and more these days in whatever way it was possible.

Couldn't I just shut up and play? well I guess so but this comfortable chair has to get some credits as well..hence the following:

Common, accepted fact: one of the most important parameters (if not the most important one) by which we judge others is success. Success brings acceptance from other society members, therefore means respect and network. It means recognizable distinction of superiority. Successful beings relate and socialize with other successful beings therefore building a strong connection between filtered/higher individuals. Not only: success places the individual in a higher rank of work-placement and since our societies are heavily regulated on the concept of work/job, success means almost inevitably money. Even if we are not considering a capitalistic/consumistic approach of success, therefore excluding money as a distinctive product of success, we can anyway easily state that success is power. Power in various degrees, one of which is inevitably influence. Successful people can use success to manipulate certain beliefs, thoughts and concepts to the position they expose or endorse. It should be said that the successful person has a stronger method of influencing because it is most likely going to be not-oppressive. We are not talking about a tyrant who forces you to believe something: most people in our society make the first step in following the successful ones and therefore get influenced without even noticing it. Things that they would have never tought about or believed now become so clear and true. While the successful one ignores the mass and lives in his own enjoyment (this is what the mass sees from its point of view of course, everything is relative though..), the mass acts by completely knowing every detail of their alter-ego (alter=other, ego=himself, the identity). The range of behaviours for people in the "mass" varies from character to character. It is frequent to see hardcore personalities feel "ok" to be compeltely submissive in regards of their idol. Not only: they get sort of defensive and try to protect the successful individual by attacking or acting as shields against those who criticize their personality of reference.

This happens in music as well, just like in any other aspect of our society. Expensive houses and cars are not the only proof of success. For some people cars do no make the difference, but a guitar or how fast you can play do..or how well you can ball or swim, how many butterflies you collected, how many books you read, how many "A"s you got, how many consoles you own, how big your TV is, or your genitals are..the list is endless. We all criticize the bad habits of another individual only to discover that we just have different habits but same interest in these status-symbols.

Status-symbols indeed: icons which carry the inner element for that level-gain, that rank earning metamorphosis. For the same of definition of "symbol", the run for the icon is most of the time useless. We can all easily agree that someone is a terrible driver once we have visual proof of his terrible skils. Now what would we think of him if he drives a Formula One car..we won't be able to change that thought in our head because the experience of actually seeing his disasters will always pop up as a reminder.

The mistake is to believe that the Wizard's powers are in its sceptre while the true Wizard drives his own energie from himself and needs no objects to cast his spells.

Ok so now this seems practically clear for you but there are some very amazing things that make us behave the way we do. Let's go back to the terrible driver with the new Ferrari: there will be some people that - no matter the experience of the terrible driving he just had - will feel bothered, disturbed, pissed off from seeing that the guy now has a Ferrari.

Feeling disturbed is a feeling that stands completely far from what we were talking about. What is the matter with that? we could see that guy in any situation imaginable, he would still just suck. And that wouldn't be a judgement, just a plain fact with no emotions, nor bad or good ones..

but there is still someone who hates that guy for that Ferrari..and that comes from the same society parameters which built success and status-symbols. In fact, the only reason why we are bothered is the understanding that he will LOOK successful to the ignorant people. How come he possesses a Ferrari and I don't even if I am a great driver? It is clear that he does not deserve it. There you have all the brainstorming set of strong feelings against others and the sick schemes of society.

The concept that "most people get what they do not deserve" and that there are "honest and fantastic people who get to live in the underground of society ranks because society just has its own sick rules" and "they do not want to get dirty so they prefer the unkown-but-pure style" probably rings a bell to most of you.

There is all kind of sick stuff there, I probably just opened, with the above statements, the dirtiest and most vicious sides of some minds. Easy to explain:

Success can be defined by the following mathematical fraction: