From Classical Roots to a Modern Piano Mentorship

Hi, I’m Emiliano and I teach piano. If we are going to start a student/teacher relationship, you might want to know a bit more about my journey — so here goes. 🙂

I started lessons at age eight. I had a Bontempi electric organ in my room — I think they had a fan inside, and when you pressed the keys you opened a valve which allowed air to flow through a reed. To the left there were chunky black and white buttons that produced chords. I didn’t know what chords were at the time; they just sounded different from the piano keys in front of me.

With that Bontempi I used to play back melodies I heard on the TV — one of which was Richard Clayderman’s Lady “Di.” If we are here today, me writing this and you reading it, it’s because of that little tune.

So one day I asked my dad if I could take piano lessons. The following week he bought me an upright Petrof — new — and arranged a meeting with a prominent local teacher, Mrs. De Anna. I was lucky.

With her, I underwent years of traditional classical training: weekly instrumental lessons and separate solfeggio (theory) classes, both of one hour each. After my lesson I would be kept in a separate room to practice — and if I stopped for too long, my teacher’s voice would thunder from the other room to keep me in line. I am glad she did.

I was told to practice six hours a day — the minimum for a professional concert career. I probably did three, not six. But those years gave me solid technical foundations I am profoundly grateful for today. She hoped I’d become a concert pianist. That didn’t happen — and that’s all right. I think I quit when I was 14, when I was old enough to ride a moped and go to the beach on my own. Yes, I swapped playing piano for riding a 50cc moped. See? Still lucky. 🙂

All the while I had been listening to pop music like all the other kids, and then one day a friend from Rome came to visit and showed me some Boogie-Woogie left hand patterns and right hand licks. I was immediately intrigued by the energy, the happiness, the drive. Challenged by this new style, I used the technique I had acquired to start mastering it.

Unlocking Harmony and the Freedom to Improvise

By 16 I had taken a shine to Jazz. Another teacher unlocked the secrets of harmony and chords for me in the very first lesson. I remember thinking: “Why did no one tell me this before?” I learned to improvise and accompany, and I would have school friends over so I could play for them, or we could all have a sing-along. Sitting at a piano for a small audience and having a sing-song is still the most natural thing in the world for me to do.

In my late teens I studied for two years at a modern music school in Rome, taking lessons from Maestro Stefano Sabatini and learning theory from Andrea Avena. I joined school bands, did my first gigs, and learned my way around electronic keyboards.

Then I had an accident and broke a bone in my right hand. I thought little of it at the time — and even less so when I moved to London in my early 20s, worked in bars, travelled, and forgot about the piano altogether.

Except for one evening: the boss got married, and a few of us were put in charge of house-sitting while he was on honeymoon. That first night we threw a staff party — and there was the piano, moved from the pub. And just like that, I was back being 16 in my living room, entertaining friends.

When I came to Ireland and joined bands on the cover circuit, I noticed my right hand still wasn’t right. The accident had limited the movement in my 4th finger. Thanks to a hand surgeon in Rome, Dr. Palombi, I underwent corrective surgery and rehabilitation. It is thanks to him that I can tell this story today.