Music Review and Interview with Gianluca Minguzzi – Clocks
This piece of music is incredibly original, a refreshing musical journey to embark upon, and intricately creative at every moment. The sounds themselves have a simple and almost childlike resonance to them, but the notes they create, and the way each instrument fuses so well with those around it – the whole piece is a work of art, it tells a dramatic and mesmerizing story as it plays out, in a similar way that classical music does, but with a modern and almost new age twist to it.
It’s exciting to hear something so new and creatively free, particularly when it comes to instrumental music, there is no obvious sense of being caged in by genre; there is a certain fluidity and freedom in the melodies and the moods created by it all. The ring of the instruments and the atmosphere assumed by the music reminded me a lot of the sort of ambiance that Hang Massive (the hang drum duo) create with their music. It’s peacefully chaotic and emotionally artistic. It’s a really effective piece of music, really drawing you in and making you want to listen intently.
I do think it’s one of those piece’s that would be even more effective to witness being performed live. The skill and focus behind each individual contribution would probably shine brightly as opposed to the general work of art that the track is a single release. For me the music could have gotten even bigger, more could have been added, more chapters to the story, more segments, more riffs, more drama. I’d be interested to hear more and to know if there is a concept or a particular set of imagery that the lead artist had in mind when putting this one together.
By Rebecca Cullen
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW:
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Gianluca Minguzzi: I was born in a small Italian town, La Spezia, 54 years ago, and I lived there for 10 years. My parents often changed towns of residence for reasons of work and my brother and I grew up knowing different people, different places. The course of study was perhaps the least indicated to a personality like mine. It was not easy having to study subjects for which I took no interest at all. It was a period of great suffering (the only good thing was that the high school diploma gave me the opportunity to access to the musical studies at the Conservatory Giacomo Puccini in La Spezia and to achieve the degree in percussion instruments). My shy and introverted character did not help others understand my true nature. The only thing which clung tenaciously me to life was music and the great involvement that gave me. Became an artist, a musician was not a choice, it was only instinctively follow my nature, do not oppose what I felt to be my path in life. It never mattered how high would be the price to pay for that, only to hear and play music was important to me. I never complained that this choice (as you call it) would let me live with chronic economic difficulties and meager personal satisfaction. The only thing that mattered to me was the direct experience of what it gave meaning to my life.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Gianluca Minguzzi: You mean “The Invisible Humanity”?
There is a very specific reason even if it embraces a broad meaning.
My human nature is compassionate, I have always been extremely sensitive nature to the suffering of living beings; nothing related to a religious education. It was just my instinctive peculiarities, natural. I remember vividly a fact that happened when I was about ten years. At that time my mother ran a car wash and I spent my days in that place. A person, who did not know, came out of his car, I looked at his eyes and read you a pain, a kind of sadness and this moved me to cry. This thing has affected my whole life. I have always been open to others (despite my reserved character). Love, understanding, friendship, these are the values that I have inspired my life. In recent years I have dedicated most of my time in social service projects, teaching music to children who live on the fringes of human society, who have suffered and / or suffer daily violence from their parents (cases of neglect or domestic violence) poverty, lack of understanding and, finally, children who have specific learning disabilities. In your country there is a teacher who has rightly become famous for his efforts against the stubborn orthodoxy of school teachers and the tenacity that she has shown in supporting, helping marginalized youth. Her name is Erin Gruwell, creator of beauty, founder of the Freedom Writers. This is for me Invisible Humanity, those who do not have succeeded, who are not entered, the dispossessed … those who are reaching out for help … and few people can hear their voices. Think of the poor continents like Africa or South America, think of how great is the injustice that requiring those people to live without even the basic necessary goods … we (as a Western society) want this? How we can live comfortably, safely wealth knowing that the weighs of our richness is on the shoulders of those who have nothing, who is no one?
I myself am part of the Invisible Humanity, I never had any real opportunities in my life an non one have offered me a chance, I have always lived in economic difficulties that, in a society based on capital, money, resulting in an incomplete freedom but not for that I wanted to change my mind, to give up to what I am. Maybe this is a lack of intelligence of mine.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Gianluca Minguzzi: Personally I have nothing against the music sharing, indeed, if it is done wisely, it is an effective way to bring culture to all people. Culture should be free for every person who intends to make use of them. Culture should be an entitlement, not a privilege for few people. For this reason I think that human activities in the field of art and culture should be supported by the community through the establishment of an economic fund providing artists (the creators of art as the propellers of culture) to live a decent life. I am opposed to forms of welfare that may become an undue exploitation of public resources but I am also against the music market, the star system as it is nothing but a creation of the market, market that turns art into a product, a commodity to sell, market that is currently in a deep crisis because of file sharing.
Clearly, with art in a market economy, the first to receive damages from file sharing are the artists themselves, but there are appropriate solutions to this problem. The books, records, schools, universities should be free, they should not weigh on people’s finances since this reduce culture down the scale of the people needs while, on the other hand, makes access to culture a privilege only for rich people.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Gianluca Minguzzi: Honestly I do not have a precise answer to this question. Mainly important is the motivation (huge) to make music, to listen to all kind of music without prejudice, to love the music choosing only between the real (which itself beauty and truth) from the fictitious, created only for commercial purposes. To live the experience of playing with other people, a wonderful thing that warms my heart and gives color to life. Do not ever approach by thinking the music as a means to stardom; this is the most common mistake of our time. If we feel within us this communicative urgency, we must clarify to ourselves what we want to say and how we say it. We have to be ruthless with our thinking and discard everything that is not that true, throwing away everything that sounds rhetorical, dig deep to get to the essence of what you mean. Pursue our goals without letting themselves be distracted or attracted by false targets. I know musicians who played for a lifetime only for the immense pleasure of it, they were never created false expectations and, for this reason, have not been the disappointment of the lack of success. Success is just a false myth created by the star system. I think of people like John Lee Hooker, or the old members of the Buena Vista Social Club, I think about the 1968’s rock, an overwhelming force that expressed a break with the old establishment of power, a rebellion to the classist social dynamics. What happened next?!? The rock is dead?!? Long live rock. The establishment has absorbed the rock through discography coaxing artists with wealth and benefit … and they have accepted becoming part of the system that were fighting. Music doesn’t need of this. Music need only love and truth so, play and play everywhere, with everybody wants to play, no matter the genre, no matter how much you’ve got instrumental technique. The only thing that matters is how much are you sincere, how much of your life are you willing to put into play for music.
First study, dedicating all the time you have to study music, it’s hard to express something understandable if you are not in possession of a minimum of language, be aware of the vastness and how many applications it takes to become proficient with a musical instrument. then, when you fell yourself ready, try to play live whenever you can, you will always have a different experience, an enrichment of your person. If the things you bring to the people will be true and beauty they’ll understand and appreciate.
That’s it… for me
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Gianluca Minguzzi: For me it’s not a matter of words… I don’t write songs, I mainly compose music for itself. The way I work is different every time. Sometimes I start with an intuition, a rhythm or melodic cell that impresses me. I start work on this by layering the musical material, increasing the sense in the development of that cell. Usually the subsequent ideas are the result of that initial cell and, usually, the first ones are always the best. Some other I pickup a cue from a suggestion I had listening to the music of another author and, from that suggestion, I create a piece of music totally new and original.
It may also be the case that my idea is of a melodic type. In that case I draw into my musical knowledge in harmony to find the best dress for this melody because I am convinced that the harmonic treatment is of crucial importance for music, it provides the colors to create the mood of your composition as the melodic lines (suddenly in counterpoint) along with the rhythm, create the dynamic sense of the music.
At the end I must say that all composers have always drawn from their cultural background, to all the music they have heard and known, and the more this cultural knowledge is vast, the more their musical production will be full of suggestions.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Gianluca Minguzzi: No, I haven’t yet a website, I’m working on it and I hope it will be online soon… By now I use SoundCloud to let the people listen to my music.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Gianluca Minguzzi: This is a curious question that I have never placed. I think I would take the money in part to live (I’ve got a wife and a wonderful daughter), in part to finance my new musical project and partly to finance the project GOSP (that means Young Orchestra of La Spezia) supported by the Bequadro association (of which I am part) to enhance the teacher workforce and musical instruments available for free for the child and the boys that I mentioned a moment ago.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Gianluca Minguzzi: Believe or not I haven’t got the experience to give you a satisfactory answer because this is the first time to publish and promote my music… In the past I took part of musical productions as musician or composer/arranger; I’ve had the chance to know that world and all his rules from inside. But today all is changed, everything moves on through internet, all is on the move and I have not yet understood enough what are the choices that are working and what are not … It’s all a matter of testing it.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Gianluca Minguzzi: I’ve got an idea that involve different artistic disciplines: audiovisual, drama and heterogeneous music. It’s a sort of modern opera that breaks the canons that border this kind of show within certain rules and point to a specific audience.
They will say: “But this is” musical “! No, it’s not, I prefer to think of it as a theatrical performance accompanied by music scene that should not be sung by the actors on stage.
I do not anticipate too much of this work, I will just say that deals with the difficulties that people encounter in contemporary society, relationships, work, the invasiveness of network, the technology that pervert the natural way we communicate, the strategy of the horrific terror that is gripping the world and its obvious perversion etc. So, many different topics that are inextricably intertwined, tangling our lives in a heap of madness. Many of these tableaux have just been set to music… I don’t know if I’ll find the strenght and the economical resources to realize this ambitious project … I will try as usual
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Gianluca Minguzzi: In the past there have been times when I was not playing; I worked on cinema, audiovisual, I worked at the direction of assembly bench, behind the camera as operator and in some cases I did the direction of some television shows, in short, my stregnht expresses itself inevitably in the creative field, I can not see myself in any other way framed in a job that does not involve the use of my mental faculties. This I think, unfortunately, my fault, every time I found myself working a chore, despite the efforts, I could not keep my suffering to the sense of disorientation that those jobs have given to me along with miserable monthly salary for which no human being would agree to sell his time, which is precious and not infinite.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Gianluca Minguzzi: I have a wonderful family, a wife who supports and encourages me crosses my path all the way, an intelligent and conscientious daughter completely self sufficient in educational studies and tha has a good and generous character; what to want more?
Obviously it is not always easy to live up to my duties, find the economical resources to live and carry out the job of husband and father but I try to do it every day with tenacity and a certain amount of joy.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Gianluca Minguzzi: At this time I can not answer to this question. It would already be a good thing to have a fan base, someone who actively support you but, by now, this has yet to happen. I think that, in the internet jungle, this is very difficult to achieve it, especially in a world that consumes things (and therefore also the music) at the speed of light and therefore needs “easy to use music” … and my music, I admit it, does not lend itself to these kind of need … but … who knows … never say never.
p.s. – For those who wants to listen to my music without have to spend money here is a link to my Soundcloud page:
