mattia galeotti
mattia galeotti
drummer for “Francesca Gaza’s album “Kugelförmigkeit”.
credits : Amélie Sigmund
presentation
Hello,
I’m Mattia Galeotti and I’m a drummer from Firenzuola, in the mountains between Florence and Bologna. I started to play drums at the music school of my hometown then I went to study jazz drums at the bachelor program of Siena Jazz University, where I graduated last year.
I’m lucky to be the drummer of Francesca Gaza “Kugelförmigkeit”.
from abstraction to reality
• PHASE 1 : THE ANNOUNCEMENT
i remember pretty well the time when Francesca told me about this project, it was actually just before the 1st lockdown at the beginning of 2020 happened. My reaction was of pure happiness, because if there’s something unusual in music that’s where I like to be! It’s when there is the opportunity to think your instrument differently, a constant adaptation to new situations and new sounds. And I know Francesca since a pretty long time now, I know her way of thinking music and I always try to find the best solution to put the best dress on it.
I accepted immediately, even though I’m the only guy not living in Basel and there’s always a long a nice travel through Italy and Switzerland! But it’s worthy to do.
• PHASE 2 : ALONE
The 1st impression I got of the music was reading all the concepts and motivations that push the idea of the album. The circular idea of time, as the band name says (for non-german speakers, Kugelförmigkeit is “sphericity”) which brings to the goal of putting together instruments that belongs to different time of history. Baroque flute, viola da gamba, theorbe coming from XVI-XVII century, together with drums, guitar, double bass... so cool to think.
Then of course I started to work on the midi files Francesca sent me. And that work turned to be really really important, because once the lockdown was there I was not even sure if I could come to Switzerland to record the album in June 2020. So, I had to renounce to the first couple of rehearsals in May and I tried to do the best alone, working on the charts while listening to the rehearsals they did without me. As a drummer, I like a lot to write on the paper with a pencil some tips that are seems fun but are really important for the playing (something like “play with mallet on right hand and stick on left hand - we as drummers have to profit the fact of having 4 limbs playing 😁).
These things turned to be so useful, because I had to do the best in a short time, and finally in June I could get through the borders and start to properly work on the music with the ensemble.
• PHASE 3 : WITH THE BAND
Rehearsing together was a really nice surprise. I knew some of the guys, but most of them no. It took a short time to get used to each others and the working time was a really good balance of being professional but also starting to get close to each others as friends. Exactly how it’s supposed to be. We followed Francesca’s instructions and I adapted what I had prepared home to fit in the ensemble sound the more I could. Still using my pencil, because there are some tips that probably even the best composer cannot write on a chart, unless he/she’s a drummer!
I think we did an amazing job considering the short time we had due to covid.
recording session(s).
• PHASE 1 : ALONE
We recorded the album at the Jazzcampus in Basel. They have a great recording studio. I was the only one staying in a different room from the others... always the destiny of drummers. I miss of course the physical presence in the band, but at some point we have to deal with this, it’s kind of normal. The goal is to try to imagine the general dynamics at best possible, considering also the filter of headphones. My pencil was there, because there were always some details coming out after every execution.
• WITH THE BAND
Studio time was chilled, and it was such a nice sensation to hear the tunes coming out better and better the more we were running through them. It’s never easy to record with this kind of ensembles, where we also need to see each others, to see the conductor, to follow the general breath in some “free of time” parts. But figuring out on the listening back that something great was rising was such a great emotion and we all ended with this nice feeling that contributed even more to increase the energy and the good vibe we had.
feedbacks
Playing with this ensemble has been (and it still is) a great lesson. For me, the drumset is still a drumset but dealing with baroque instrument, dealing with such a richness of sounds means that, as a drummer, you have to think to the role of the single instruments of the drumset. The choice of sound is even more important, because there’s not so much space in the sound spectrum with all these instruments and you have to leave space to all of them. That’s the beauty of Kugelförmigkeit: each instrument is valorized, but the ensemble is what comes out the most. And being part of this is such a great feeling.
The album release was just the result, but the way we got there is the best thing. And we are just at the beginning of a path, the best is yet to come!
future…
As a musician, you always want to research, to discover new things, to travel, to get and give motivations. This process will always be there and I’ll never get tired of it. I’m part of a lot of amazing projects, and personally I love playing others’ music, trying to give my contribution to make it sound the best way possible. I don’t have my personal project yet, I’m not in a hurry or nervous about that, but it will come at some point. I hope it will be the best picture of what I’ve lived until now.
And about music in future, it’s hard to have an opinion about how it will be in the next years. I just can say I hope that curiosity will be there for all the listeners. We don’t have to be afraid of discovering something new, then we can decide what to appreciate and what not. If curiosity is there, everyone making music will find a sense of doing it.
mattia playing drums 🥁
credits : davide radatti
