SoraLudovaika

«I will call her Giuggiola and keep her with me always... she will be my little Giuggiola... come here Giuggy, come here little Giuggy!»

My DeProfile DeRestored (updated as of 03/01/09)

To discover my musical tastes and more, check out my Deranking (click on 'classifica').
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or send me an e-mail or contact me via instant messaging at the following address

spiritualunity@hotmail.it






I. Life, Studies, and Goofing Off

Ludovica was born on September 12, 1988 in Rome, 110 days before the end of the year. On that same day Hurricane Gilbert devastated Jamaica (I just learned this from Wikipedia). There are no particularly significant events in my life until I turn 15, the day when... I won't tell you. That year I moved house, from a modest apartment in the Marconi area I was catapulted to the suburbs, where I met one of my greatest friends: the sea in winter. My high school years are completely negligible, a mediocre career and the promise of a love, also mediocre and negligible, never fulfilled.
The only thing that survives from that period are some vinyl records and a series of folders on the computer I inherited from my brother. These albums kept me company in the months following the move; a good number of them ended up on the mp3 CDs I listened to during my long walks along the seafront.
In 2006 I managed to graduate (with much difficulty). A Classical High School diploma is useless, as I realized the following year when I enrolled in Law only to drop out just before the second semester. I am not a particularly ambitious girl and did not want to continue my studies, I let myself go (physically and otherwise) until the day I found a modest job as a shop assistant in a household goods store. The "principalessa" is very kind and appreciates my ability to assist customers but sees other prospects for me: for a few weeks now I have earned the prestigious position of cashier. During the eight hours (sometimes ten!) I am forced to listen to the nostalgic radio that the "boss" loves so much... thanks to this radio I discovered that the music "from before" produced just as much rubbish as it does today, with the only difference that almost everyone knew how to sing. So all those things about "how beautiful music was before" that 50-year-olds sometimes come up with are not true!
I take advantage of the moments when there are no customers or bosses to go online with my laptop and/or watch a bit of TV. Sometimes I feel like I'm projected into a reality that doesn't belong to me and pay for choices I never made. Without really having chosen it, I find myself alone in a shop ringing up receipts. I very much envy the out-of-town university girls who come to stock up on knick-knacks in the store and consult with their roommates. After work I have little chance to have fun; my evenings are just like that time when my mother first allowed me to stay out no later than half past midnight. Today, of course, the hours are much more flexible, but every time it feels like reliving that first night out with my mother who never tires of saying "since you're going out take out the trash" or "who are you going with?" and me gently closing the door, and with the same sigh of relief, thanking God for saving me from yet another prime-time soap opera. Only the faces have changed...

II. Passions

From 1996 to 2001 I studied piano with the help of a private teacher. The results were good, but I was not prepared enough to continue my studies at the conservatory. Despite my few technical skills and little dexterity with solfeggio, thanks to a chord manual I studied entirely in secret, I know all the chords and scales. Intuitively, I am (still today, fortunately!) able to reconstruct melodic phrases with the related chords. In the last year, I begged my teacher to prepare me for the recital with a full version piece: No "easy Bach" or "limping" versions of Strauss waltzes... The choice fell on Satie's Première Gymnopédie, a 'slow and painful' piece. It's easy to memorize, with few (but beautiful) chords and doesn't require particular technical skills. The teacher, who also taught at a middle school, told me just before placing the sheet music on the piano stand about his job, saying that music in schools is an underrated subject and those who try to teach it are often considered janitors by their students (nothing new there—I used to throw paper balls at the dumb music teacher myself!). Many of them go wild shouting and joking during his classes. He revealed to me a foolproof strategy to bring them back into line: while the most predictable reaction from a teacher would be to try to outshout them by raising his voice even more, he started speaking softly to those few students who were paying attention (or at least seemed to). Suddenly, even the most unruly began to follow him, not out of interest, but at least with that slightly hypocritical respect typical of students. He explained to me that this should be the right attitude for a musician, because music should not be a feat of skill, it shouldn't interest people for its volume or fancy passages, but should find its way among the voices and thoughts of the audience to master them. Similarly, my interpretation of Satie, far from any technical bravura showing off, had to surprise people with its lightness and almost imperceptible consistency. Nothing could be further from Satie's intentions, of course, at least in that piece. On the day of the recital I didn't feel like I pierced the hearts of the other students' parents, who were probably just waiting to see their own child perform so they could rush home and make dinner. But I remember the satisfaction of that day, my mother's smile and my father who probably thought, "Thank goodness, no hysterics today!" (but I wanted to interpret as a "she's great, bravo Ludovica!") and the feeling of having done something right for the first time (still the only one in my life to this day). This whole meatball was just to say that my musical tastes are shaped by these simple principles, learned in my last year of music studies from a person whose words I remember clearly, if not the face. I don't think I've ever betrayed those principles, not even when I tortured myself with those 'progressive' records.


III. Not-So-Serious Interlude to Explain Important Things: After Graduation

Dopo che me ne so annata da scola e ho inizziato affà l'univerzità, me so iscritta a giurissprudenzza, 'n munnezzaio pieno de poracce co la voja de c... e de poracci, pure questi co la stessa voja. A metà anno me stavo a preparà diritto romano e privato, poi a 'na certa, siccome nun so scesa da amontagna der szapone, me so rotta e me so rinchiusa dentro casa. L'amici gaggi che c'uscivo quann'è ch'annavo a scola nun li vedevoppiù essò rimasta da sola a casa a fa la mattanvestaja cor gatto e a raccoje tutti li peli che lasciava in giro signora mia! A na certa poi ('ehi questa è la maxi storia di come la mia vita è cambiata') mi madre dice che me ne devo annà a lavoro perché sto solo a magnà e a da retta ar gatto. Così prima lavoro da na parucchiera, na drittona che nun faceva le fatture, ma sta coatta ngiorno se fa rode e nn me vole più a fa li sciampi pemmettece la fia dellamica sua. Poi namica de namica de mi madre me dice che ce sta un posto da commessa, me presento... sarebbe ndo lavoro ancora oggi*. C'ho solo amici e omini e quarke storiella da du sordi. Na sera ho conosciuto uno ar concerto dii settelfish ar traffic, (locale na cifra punk, hardcore, emo... ancora nn ho capito che cazzo ce fanno!) Fabbrizzio che poi ce so stata fino addù mesifà, che mansegnato i firm de gion uoterz. Siccome che a me lo stile de uoterz me piace, so diventata tresh na cifra! A musica me piace ancora na cifra, ma mo me guardo pure i firm, anfatti una delle cose che me so fatta regalà pennatale da mi madre èntelevisore da quarantadùpollici che me so fatta piazzà ai piedi del letto così me sparo nfaccia tutti i firm che vojo, pure quelli zozzi come quelli de gion uoterz. Avvolte faccio pure l'intelliggente e me metto a vede i firm de fellini, me piace na cifra Giulietta delli spiriti... Me stanno a piace troppo pure i miusicol, specie quelli con gin chelli occò doris day, che so na sciccheria.

IV. My life now.

From 'La Spesa' by Marta sui Tubi:

«and I don’t know how, but I will get there on time…
I’m missing a kilo of whole peace and two ounces of understanding and a carton of long-life love, there’s nothing left but to do the shopping, keep paying for what I want and don’t yet have, and I don’t know where but I will arrive on time
such a vast choice lies before me, what will I choose? But I want more to fill my basket... what will I choose? I wish I could be the one once chosen...»


* since Saturday 10/01/09 I am unemployed.


Of course I have to add many more things but it's gotten late!