ItalianWe met Giorgio and Teodoro thanks to Piotr .During his show they brought their visitors during the “tour”, a bit ‘crazy musicians able to transform any object into music at their disposal. The appointment is at Giorgio’s. This is the first house where you first have to get out. Let me explain: there is a gate, a gate, a painted ground floor, another door, a covered walkway with a roof and stained-glass, finally, the door of Giorgio’s (which by the way no one uses because it is a bit ‘hard to open, and everyone prefers to enter directly from the window). The house is a kind of touch or ex-fake-barn the eccentric landlord renovated in Pompeian style. Inside the walls are painted with a classic trompe l’oeil flavor. There are seascapes, Greek gods warriors with helmets and shields, all on a red-orange that makes it so Pompeian villa. In a nutshell it looks like a cross between a pizza and a bachelor pad, a den for bunga-bunga of one who, however, did the high school. So, seen by Pallas Athena we make a good dinner of lasagna, salad and avocado, and main dish, of course a creation of Giorgio’s, liver sausage with onions and green apple. Which, saying it so it may seem a bit ‘heavy, but I assure you very tasty.
At close, the black forest cake kindly brought by myself as cool recent birthday. And when Teodoro arrived, I had the pleasure of a very exclusive “Saturnian” arrangement of the classic “happy birthday to you”. Beautiful and moving, only that this version, extemporaneous and unique lasted 45 minutes with the risk of seeing the candles completely liquefy.
The conversation was hilarious and fun with Giorgio and Teodoro, with their spoken Tuscan-Bari, routinely adding anecdotes, stories and reflections.
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What were the experiences that you did before working together?
Giorgio – Among the various situations in which I grew up there was the workshop of my father, who repaired hi-fi stereo.My childhood games were sound waves, amplifiers, magnets … Then I started playing in rock bands, but I always had an approach directed more towards the sound to the instrument itself, so that I do not have an instrument.
Are you a multi-instrumentalist?
Giorgio – Rather a-instrumentalist!I see myself more as an artist lent to music, or a musician paid to contemporary art … well from outside or through.
When you say that you started playing in groups what do you mean?
Giorgio – I played the electric guitar, rock, noise.At fourteen I had a year of classical guitar, but I hated, especially for the teaching method. For me the important thing is to play music, then learn all the different structuring of sound. I think it’s a problem of the academy, however, that led me to reject the whole apparatus and conventional style. On second thought: why should I be against the notes, scales, chords? At the end it was a reaction that prompted me to simply choose a different path.
Teodoro – I started when I was very little to play brass instruments, the classical flute.But I hardly insisted carrying it with me and I played continuously, even when I should not. Then I did a small course of music for bands, and I had, like Giorgio, my bad experience because I wanted to play the flute while the gang leader, the teacher, I wanted to address me the trumpet. Beautiful instrument, among other things, but at that moment I looked at Ian Anderson , and this has made me a bit ‘away from studying.Later, I made progressive rock, I was in about twenty different groups, free-jazz. I had several other opportunities to learn, but I have always realized that it’s a little ‘a waste of time: I’m not a musician as a profession, not an interpreter of others’ songs, so I prefer to take the instrument and play.
Giorgio – In the end, to play the music you want, you have no need to write it, than take some notes.
Teodoro – Now, with technology, it is much easier to make a note sound rather than writing.
Giorgio – I use pen and address book but I do as I wish, I trace signs, I write a word, arrows, I have no preconceived plan, just me understand it.
Teodoro – Unlike Giorgio that has a great skill, because he creates according to what he has available, I fell in love with instruments.For example, when I heard Ian Anderson I decided to learn to play the flute, bass clarinet as soon as I heard, I decided that I absolutely had to have one, when I just heard the bagpipes, I decided to play it.
Did you made a count of all the tools that you have gradually picked up and learned to play?
Teodoro – I have some percussion, guitar, analog synths, the Korg MS-20 , but, basically, my field is that of brass, flute, soprano and tenor saxophone, bagpipes, shawm , bass clarinet, and when I will have the money to buy it, contrabass clarinet.
What kind of training you had and how helpful?
Giorgio – The school has taught us anything but the desire to discover new things and chance encounters that expand you the scope of knowledge and interest.For example, while I was in Grosseto I was quite attached to rock, also in a very experimental. Arriving in Bologna, where I studied fine arts academy, I found a beautiful setting in which where the approach was more directed towards the radical improvisation, noise, musique concrete. It was also important my Erasmus period in Berlin. There, I found myself well enough to return the following year also, I have many dear friends there. After Berlin I went to Bologna, but with other friends, we moved to a cottage in the mountains. That was one of the most fertile periods, musically speaking.
Teodoro – I studied Architecture in Pescara, from 87 up to 2005, I worked as an architect near Bari The interesting thing is that during these 20 years I have played absolutely nothing, due to lack of time.In 2005 I was called by the then Education Authority of Bari communicating me that I won a contest in ’91 as a teacher of technical education in middle school, I was a professor. Since then I put more and more by the architectural profession and I have dedicated myself to that as a teacher, first in Bari and then after the transfer, in Pescara. Returning to training, while studying architecture, I did theater and it helped me a lot for music. I did internships with the Living Theatre , with Jerzy Grotowski , the Comuna Baires , with companies that make theater Butoh and others ..
When did you meet?
Giorgio – About three years ago in Arsita, near Castelli in the province of Teramo.
Teodoro – I was there playing with one of my many small groups of Abruzzo ethnic music in this important event which is called the Singing Valfino , organized by Spitilli Gianfranco and Marco Magistrali .I was invited by Li Sandandonijrë Penna Sant’Andrea.
Who are the sandandonijre?
Teodoro – They are singers and musicians who put on a small scale music-theater house to house.In this pantomime, St. Anthony is tempted by the devil in every way and with him there is always a pig.
Giorgio – It’s part of the official iconology, but beware, not St. Anthony of Padua, but St. Anthony Abbot.
Teodoro – Returning to Arsita, I was there to play my bagpipe when he approached this strange mustachioed …
Giorgio – He was playing in the street and I stopped him.
Did he bother?
Teodoro – Yes, he “bothered”me.
Giorgio – I noticed that he was playing traditional pieces but with a approach to free improvisation.Sometimes he gave the impression that revolved around the theme in a certain way, other times, however, open to other things. I thought that his way of playing was interesting so when he finished, I made a small talk with him.
You were both already in Pescara?
Teodoro – I had been working in Bari and I was a commuter, in weekends I was in Pescara.
Giorgio – I still lived in Sabbioni, in the province of Bologna.Except for three months in Portugal, for two years I have not had a permanent place to stay, I turned. Then, Valentina (Giorgio’s girlfriend) took home near Pescara, Silvi, and knowing that Teodoro was here, I called him to play together.
Teodoro – I took synthesizers.
Giorgio – He was thinking of doing modern things, but I showed up with a kind of micro mbira and drums, all tiny things, microsounds, and we made our jam.
Was there when you realized that you could put on a project?
Teodoro – Actually the night after we lost sight.
Giorgio – Valentina left the house and she went to Avezzano, so sometime I went in Abruzzo.
Teodoro – There was some exchange of mail in the meantime, and then I met again them by bike, we were all three bikes, but they went one way and I another, to the prison …
Why were you going to jail?
Teodoro – I teach at the jail at night school, technology to middle school.When we met we were searching the house, then this would be where we are now. Returning to our first project, there is Piotr .
Giorgio – I was already in agreement with Piotr to get him this composition, antimony , for the exhibition.
Teodoro – Giorgio invited me to the inauguration of the exhibition where he performed his composition and, from there, we got the idea to propose to Piotr music to accompany the tour to the exhibition, so we did.
This is a beautiful story, with you meeting in Arsita, losing, then meeting again by bike, then by Piotr and deciding to do something together …
Teodoro – It is true, the chance always guide you.
Then when we met again at the presentation of the exhibition catalog by Piotr you played a different composition, how was it called?
Teodoro – Saturnie.
Giorgio – Among the many suggestions that can create, there is also the name of this town, near Grosseto, which had been given this name by the Romans because they thought it was the oldest city in the world.
Teodoro – The tools that we used, in fact, are quite primitive.
Giorgio – Rods, pegs, bamboos, there is this kind of atmosphere that is reminiscent of Saturnia where water generates sulfuric fumes and waterfalls.
What is the name that you create that effect, one that practically drills the brain until it kills you?
Teodoro – It is a physical effect called battimento and it generates when sound waves have different frequencies between.
Giorgio – The waves must be located symmetrically away, so when you find it so (see explanatory photos) they creates this effect.
Tedoro – It is as if you would create another phantom sound due to the fact that sensory perception varies, it does not know what is the right vibration.
Giorgio – Although it is not the same thing, it is like the effect of certain low frequencies that you feel inside, it is a tactile, you can hear the sound directly into the body.
Does this phenomenon has a specific use in music?
Teodoro – All popular instruments have inside a similar effect.The organs tuners know that should not make tempered tuning, because if the instrument is perfectly tuned it sounds flat, it gives little emotions.
Among the projects you have done in the past, is there someone to whom you are linked in a special way?
Teodoro – There are many important experiences: the Ratablò , with whom I do folk music; the Magnetic Place , with Nicola Calamita, Giuseppe Savino, Gaetano Corallo and other musicians who make improvised music.Down in Bari I have been in a very nice group of noise-making that call themselves Lo Flopper , Edi Leo, Adele Di Nunzio and Pino Montecarlo.Then, there GRA / D that I care particularly, Analog Digital Research Group, Luigi Pizzaleo , with his glass harp, Luigi Di Giampietro and Vincenzo Grossi .This is a work that is visual and musical, with music performed live and video made with Processing .We worked together two years ago with a project on Galileo Galilei, which we brought to Teramo, in Rome at the Goethe Institut , the Conservatory of Campobasso.
Giorgio – In the end I liked all the things I did with someone else.I do not like to work alone, I rather seek collaborations. I worked more in the studio, recording and assembling things, alone, I play very little live, too demanding, does not seem necessary. Among the last things there is XO with a Brazilian musician named Blu , whose real name is Rafael Simon Wasem, they have these nicknames that become official.This project is still open, the last time we did a small tour in the Czech Republic in January. We met in Portugal, but now he lives in Thailand after passing through Malaysia, and before that, Turkey. It will be not so easy to reconnect again, however, he suggested to go and record the new album in the Philippines. We approach this total, out of any convention, and genre. In Czech Republic, for example, we performed by connecting a pan to amplification, put on an electrical fire, which contained popcorns. At one point, at the end of the concert, popcorns where flying everywhere. Sometimes we only played with objects and microphones, sometimes we had other pieces only with drum machine and piano, but we also did a beautiful cover of Michael Jackson . Another important thing for me is Alberorovesciato , perhaps the most legendary project which I made along with two other musicians, Francesco Cavaliere and Marco Lampis .We already knew in Bologna but then they moved to Berlin and from there I was involved in this crazy project. We spent three months of preparation overpained completely tripped in this project, so much so that we spoke a language all our own, we had become a socio-urban case. We leave for tour with this epic machine, called Paraphrase, I went to buy at the border with Poland for 130 euros. The beauty is that none of the three of us have a license for which we have found the drivers three days before. It was an absurd tour, I think they still remember us in all the places in which we passed, then it went a little over ‘bad because there were trouble, disagreements, arguments and the group went to the dissolution,at least as a trio.
In the best tradition of bands …
Giorgio – We have condensed the story of a band within 5-6 months.
Teodoro – Like Leningrad Cowboys Go America , have you ever seen the movie?
Giorgio – Only that we played lying on a mat with all types of percussion and two keyboards, Casio-type old Bontempi, effettate with tape echo.We played the drums leaving by our hands and throwing away to each of us. In Bologna there was an amazing concert, with us throwing the tools on public and public throwing to us.
Really “interactive”.
Giorgio – Bells in the shins of people…
When looking for inspiration where you need to dial? Do you have a technical, process, system …
Teodoro – For myself, I start directly from the tool I use,it is a very material ing ththat comes from the fact that the instruments are related to my breathing.It’s really very physical at the base of which there are micro-variations, as in the tradition of folk music.
Giorgio – There is a very interesting book by Derek Bailey on improvisation that demonstrates how improvisation is something so modern, but even that was once the norm in what is now called classical music, but that at the time was just music.
Teodoro – Actually among genders there has always been a continuous transfer, beyond any label or category.For example in Puglia, the banda, the one that goes on in the processions and is always formed by Flautino, snare and bass drums, it has a repertoire ranging from operatic arias to Orietta Berti. Handel itself when he goes in Campania discovers the bagpipes and put into his compositions.
Giorgio – To me it is completely different because, being a-instrumentalist, usually I do not start from instruments, but from an idea, a concept.Even in some cases I try to start with a narrative, a story. Using real sounds, in which the melodic component is very poor, the narrative becomes a kind of cinema for the ears. This is a component, the superstructure, then there’s that microstructural represented by the various pieces that make up the entire.
So we arrive at the part of the interview referred to as “the Dariabignardi”. Now I’m in trouble because there’s a blogger friend of ours, Salvatore, that gets upset like a killer bee when he hears these questions, because he says they are missing anything with the interview and they sound out of place. Now I have to reformulate those in order to avoid his reproaches. So instead of asking to advise a website I ask you: what is the last page that you saved on your bookmarks bar?
Giorgio – What changes?
Do not ask questions and answer!
Giorgio – Awesome Tapes from Africa .It is a blog created by a young American who has done research in Africa thinking to find things and instead finding others and he was completely surprised by what was the musical reality. So he started doing this blog to collect all the tapes that he found or that they send to him. It also came to play tapes, no discs, in Pescara. Sites like this are still among my favorites, another Sahel sounds .Then, for me it is important to the site of Battiti , the transmission of Radio 3, because you can listen to the podcast, and even Rai Replay to see the film Fuoriorario , Giap by Wu Ming, etc. ..
Teodoro – I make my musical research on Youtube, I find names in many ways, often on Facebook.The last thing I shared is a stunning visual musical work, a dancer who you can not see, she is all reassembled with something like sand, it seems Butoh dance.Then, to be honest, I lose a lot of time on technical sites, because even if I do not use the computer for music, Igo crazy for music software.
What is the magazine you bought but you have not yet opened?
Teodoro – Internationale
Giorgio – I rarely buy magazines and only when really interest me.In any case, it is almost exclusively The Wire .
What is the book on your nightstand?
Teodoro – The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler ( I generally really like Richler).
Giorgio – Giorgio Manganelli, Tragedies to read.
And your favorite book ever? (Salvatore do not get mad)
Teodoro – The creation of Gore Vidal, Joyce, The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo, and Gadda, The cognition of pain, I would say all of Gadda’s …
Giorgio – There are a lot but I could tell you the Orphic songs of Dino Campana, then there is one thing that inspired me to create a composition, and I knew that many would like, and Great Sertão João Guimarães Rosa, great brazialian writer, of which I loved even My uncle The jaguar, the language always changes depending on the characters and their language.
What is the TV show that you hate?
Giorgio – Almost everything.
Teodoro – At my house the TV is off, my wife sees the BBC in iPad, my son download TopGear, my daughter lives in front of the computer …
What a nice picture of family life … a true postmodern family.
Teodoro – I have long called for the sealing of the TV as per the law, and I’m waiting for the financier to recap the TV.
TV recap, is it like for those condemned to death?
Teodoro – The law, very old, which provides TV license, refers to the possession of the TV, so who has a television must pay the fee, if one no longer wants to own it, by mails and mails, ask the sealing device.You pay 5 euros and you wait a financier to put a lot on TV and seals. I’ve been waiting the financier for 10 years… but I’m ready.
Cinema?
Giorgio – Very Brazilian cinema, Julio Bressane , Béla Tarr , the Hungarian director, Carmelo Bene , things filmed are very beautiful.
Teodoro – Given that I do not go to the cinema for years, I would say Kaurismaki , The Mahabharata by Peter Brook, Jan Svankmajer …
Cities where would you live?
Giorgio – In the tropical belt.
Teodoro – In central European range, up from Trieste.
Music, the last thing heard and shared.
Giorgio – Colin Stetson , but every month I find something I like.If I had to communicate with the aliens and want them to understand through music how many beautiful things mankind can do, I would say John Coltrane .
Teodoro – I’m for John Zorn in any salsa anyway.
Giorgio – And they’ll say: “Why Zorn?He is from our side ”
What are the qualities you need for your work?
Giorgio – I think you can do it with so many qualities, but what I think is important is the freshness of mind, this thing that allows you to open yourself to new research, new roads, new concepts, makes you capable of dynamism, going to discover things .
Teodoro – You fully anticipated me, it is this approach in which is essential humility.
Giorgio – You may not be modest, but you must be humble to be open.
Instead, a quality that you are missing and you would like to work on?
Giorgio – To me it is commitment, I’m lazy to incredible levels.I need to live in a stimulating environment otherwise I get bad, I will limit myself, and I do not like it. If there is a context that answers me I go down with the intensity, and this to emphasize that this intensity is missing in Pescara.
Teodoro – For me is to try to decrease the background noise.When I was an architect I cleaned the desk and did one thing at a time. Now, I want to do many things at once and I end up not concluding anything. I get lost in silly technology, in things that interest me but I do miss a lot of time. Now I can not clear the desk because the desk is everywhere.
What you’d find in your future?
Teodoro – I’d like a bass clarinet.
Giorgio – I have a little ‘more than continuity, because there were times when I did things because I had no money, now, however, I am doing very little because I’m working hard and I have free time.I return to the discourse of the city, I need to be in a place where, when I have free time, I must immediately do something that interests me.
Instead a concern?
teodoro – It’s always work, because the area where I work, education, is ever changing.As an architect, however, there is no more room.
Giorgio – I should enlarge the problem of work because it is related to how society is structured, the real problem.There is the life, suffering, disease, is for everyone the same thing, but the social structure can be changed, and should be changed if the majority of people is not feeling good in that. The problem of work, people who take advantage of the disadvantage of others, are only aspects, almost central, of a social structure that does not work.
Tell us the name of people you would like us to know.
Giorgio – would like to start by Blu , although I do not know where he is now and what he does.A person in Pescara which is worth knowing is Paul Visci , one that, beyond the social role it plays, he actually really cares about the cultural situation of this city, and people who experience this problem so, I do not have known.Then, I could tell my grandmother, who started as a young woman from Sicily without knowing neither read nor write, she married, she married again, she changed jobs 3-4 times, she learned to use the phone before the calculator and has a very nice approach to life.
Teodoro – I could say Luigi Pizzaleo , a composer who has worked at the conservatory of L’Aquila and he is now in Rieti.He is very active with a group called NUME (New Music for Education), he takes care of seminars, courses, he has won several awards, is very interesting for its research, designing machines with sound sculptors, experienced interactions computer processing and other software.The other is Vincent Grossi , he lives in Pescara, in his attic attached to his PC, but he is a volcano erupting.