Riccardo Marongiu©
Independent explorer of totality
Multi-artist, composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalistBiographical notes

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I was born in a wonderful place, Garda Lake. Anyone who knows it knows what I'm talking about.

Right from the start, I began taking objects and toys apart to understand how they were made, crying because I couldn't put them back together again, but then, amid the disappointment and tears, I learned how to do it.

At the age of seven, I performed in public for the first time. I had been studying piano for two years, it was my first recital, and the only memory I have of it is the fear of going on stage.

It wasn't that I particularly enjoyed playing those pieces by Czerny and Schumann that all pianists encounter at the beginning of their journey. I preferred to wander around the countryside. I did like Hanon's technical exercises, but my main focus was on finding my own solutions, trying to play songs or any piece that struck me by ear.

I listened to a lot of music and read a lot. At home, there were hundreds of records, including operas, singles, instrumental music, and hundreds of books, literary classics: the Iliad, the Odyssey, Orlando Furioso, Taras Bulba, I Promessi Sposi, War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice.

 

I really liked a record with Rossini's Overtures, my favorite was “La Gazza Ladra.” I went from the triumphal march of Aida to Celentano, from the Beatles to Rita Pavone. I liked everything and didn't know that “experts” distinguished between first-rate, second-rate, third-rate, and fourth-rate music... for me it was all the same, and it still is.

It was very satisfying to be able to pick out the piano part of “Lady Madonna,” the chords of “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” and “Il Primo Giorno di Primavera” from the record. I perceived things beyond the melody: I heard the bass lines, the harmonic movements, the wind phrases, and at the age of eight or nine, I already knew how to sing many solos. I never learned the words to any song; they didn't seem important to me.

 

Watching Gegè Di Giacomo, I fell in love with the drums. I managed to get one as a gift for my graduation, and it was really awful: it was a very old instrument, with a narrow, tall bass drum, which cost 4,000 lire. I took it home without even having any idea how to play it, but I was sure there had to be some logic to it. I started listening to some records to try to understand something, and in a couple of days, I had a revelation! The catalyst was “Il ballo di Simone”: snare drum on 2 and 4, hi-hat in eighth notes, bass drum first on 1 and then two eighth notes on 3. It was easy, I told myself! I wrote down a series of rhythms from various records and thought: I can play the drums! But a couple of weeks later, I had a setback. An experienced drummer came to my house and showed me a few things: I couldn't repeat any of them.

 

In middle school, I found classmates who played music and we decided to start a band. We succeeded in our first year of high school, playing a few songs, then someone played me Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and Vanilla Fudge. I was blown away!

 

At sixteen, I joined my first serious band. We were enthusiastic, had costumes, good equipment, and an anti-commercial repertoire. No one noticed us, but I began the experience of playing in concerts.

I was seventeen when I started playing with those all-purpose orchestras that toured the country. It was a real job, and playing everything taught me a lot: from the Romagna ballroom repertoire to jazz standards such as “Cheek to Cheek” and “Autumn Leaves,” from R&B to the New Year's Eve repertoire.

 

I remember special experiences, such as with circus performers, where the drums play an important role. In addition to playing the songs on the set list, the drummer has to accentuate all the movements on stage: from the bicycle riding on one wheel to the monkeys running around, from the clowns breaking things to the parrots pushing a toy car... I couldn't do two things at once, I either got one wrong or the other. The artists got angry (you didn't roll at the right point!) The musicians got angry (you went out of time!). Then I learned to split myself in two and accentuate the movements without going out of time with the music. It would have been useful forever!

 

In 1973, I started playing with LOG2, a band that would become a family and continue to exist with the same members until March 2020, when musical director Eugenio “Gege” Giordani passed away, leaving an unfillable void.

 

By the end of the 1970s, I was fed up with playing 150 dates a year playing music I didn't give a damn about, even though I have fond memories of playing as a support act with many national and international artists: we always jammed during soundcheck, which was fantastic!

I will never forget the thrill of supporting Gentle Giant, the greatest progressive band ever. They even complimented us in the dressing rooms, but I never understood if they were joking.

 

While my collection of records and books continued to grow, I left to do my military service, which I had previously postponed because of university. I listened to a lot of 20th-century symphonic music, I loved the sound of the orchestra, a lot of jazz from the 1960s, such as John Coltrane's historic quartet and Miles Davis's “Golden Quintet,” but above all jazz-rock: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Lifetime. I was already fed up with rock at 17. After falling in love with Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, I couldn't stand what came after, like those pompous bands such as Genesis.

 

I enrolled at the Conservatory to study Electronic Music with Walter Branchi, listened to works by Karl Heinz Stockhausen, John Cage, György Ligeti, and discovered Baroque music. I was instantly mesmerized when I first heard the Brandenburg Concertos in Bologna, at someone's house. Two days later, back home, I bought the box set of the six concertos in the Archiv edition played by Karl Richter, paying 70,000 lire for it, a fortune! Since then, I have continued to buy different editions, including the complete score.

I am sure that Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 is the piece I have heard most often in my life.

 

I started writing music, beginning with complex material: the first piece, “Missis Fi,” already has a complicated harmony. Then I wrote hundreds more, because they came to me but also on commission.

 

In 1980, I released my first record, “GiaroMarongiu,” a vinyl in collaboration with Paolo Giaro: a few plays on the radio, a few reviews in specialized newspapers, and that was it. Then, towards the end of the 1990s, I started getting phone calls asking if I still had any copies left. I wondered what was going on. I had three or four copies, but I kept them as souvenirs. These people wanted fifty, a hundred copies. A DJ friend called me and told me that someone had rediscovered the record in London after finding it at a second-hand stall. He started playing it, people liked it, it became a cult classic, everyone was hunting for it, and the price rose to almost $200. It was described by a British specialist magazine as one of the ten best Acid Jazz records of all time.

And to think that when Paolo and I recorded it, the term Acid Jazz didn't even exist...

From this experience, I learned that we Italians don't know how to value our own things, but if the input comes from abroad, then... suddenly we become provincial and xenophile. Even today, the record is still on sale on Japanese, Brazilian, Czechoslovakian websites, and who knows where else. But the price is no longer sky-high, as you can pick it up for €30-40.

 

In the 1990s, I discovered my aptitude for holistic music. With the band “Codice Nuovo,” we released three CDs and performed many concerts nationwide. Of these, I remember participating in the national Trance Dance event in Varazze organized by the Osho Meditation Center.

 

Over the years, I have written songs in the form of folk songs, more complex pieces for orchestra and big band, pieces for small groups, music for ballet and theater, music for television documentaries on VHS and DVD, music for websites, and experimental music.

I have composed jazz and fusion music, two operas, and ethnic and Balkan pieces.

Some people ask me why I don't write songs to become rich and famous, but I really don't know how to answer that... what I do know is that my work is intended for a niche audience.

I play and write across genres, experimenting with Art, Science, and Mystery in the perception that everything is deeply connected...

 

I have written about twenty plays and two costume dramas with original medieval-Renaissance music.

And, not to be outdone, I am also an amateur writer, photographer, sculptor, and painter.

 

This website provides an overview of my work.

My YouTube channel features about five hundred LIVE videos of my performances, plays, and concerts.

 

And the story continues.