Andrea Centazzo Paiste artist

Music samples & Photos

Gong workshop : Soul Of the Gong

The gong has a very special meaning for many Eastern Culture and is more than an musical instrument. In this workshop Gong Master Andrea Centazzo explains the history, the manufacture and the use of the gong in many culture and provide the applicants with a new approach to the instrument whatsoever is the use that they want accomplish.

  1. Presentation with music examples (recorded and live) of all kind of gongs in their cultures
  2. Explanation of gong making with examples
  3. Exposition of gong playing techniques
  4. Creation of a gong composition with all applicants
  5. Recording and analysis of the created gong composition
  6. Rehearsal of the gong composition for future concert

As one of the most prominent avantgarde percussionists Andrea Centazzo had very early parlayed his interests in sound exploration into a consulting gig with the Italian cymbal and gong maker UFIP and began designing new instruments under the imprint Ictus 75. Centazzo went on to invent the Tampang, Sheng, Lokole and Ogororo, all new type of gongs, as well as many instruments that never went beyond the prototype stage. As a result, Centazzo has become one of the éminence grise of contemporary percussion design. Through his work with UFIP, as a top artist for Paiste, and from his endorsement deals with Remo, Vic Firth, and Premier, he has helped expand the traditional sound palette to meet the needs of composers and percussionists.

DRUM! Magazine, 2013

Gong Meditation Music

The gong: consider the rippling effect of a pebble on a placid lake… and now picture the ripples of the sound waves reverberate all over the space from the body of the gong. When you strike the gong, it emanates sound energy that, thanks to its circular shape, can reach all points around. The sonic result is to make your body vibrating accordingly, both playing it and listening to it.

That’s where the therapeutic quality of the gongs reveals itself.

Legendary Italo-American composer, percussion and gongs master Andrea Centazzo has built sincretic musical language of percussive Morse Code in order to create musical landscapes that defies the limitations of styles and genres.

As one of the most prominent percussionists and gong players Andrea Centazzo had very early parlayed his interests in sound exploration into a consulting gig with the Italian cymbal and gong UFIP Gong Master, Andrea Centazzo was one of the first musicians discovering the power of the gong through his gong making in the 70s and decades of sound/psychoacoustic studies.

As matter of fact when in the West the gong was still considered just a mere object of decoration or a sound effect, Andrea was already incorporating it in his music.

Some thirty years later, today the gong is considered mostly a therapeutic instruments and is used in yoga, sound meditation, and vibrational therapy.

Mandala Gong Concert

MANDALA is a celebration of vital energy, deep spirituality and healing power of sound trough the music. The concert is divided in five chapters connected to the main elements of life: Water, Air, Earth and Fire. Those elements are not only celebrated in music but are present with their own real sounds recorded on sacred grounds like the Borobodur Temple in Java, the Piramid Desert in Nevada, the Zen Garden in Kyoto, the Kings Graves in Bali and more.

Lost Mandala

  1. Chanting in a Kyoto Temple: Life and Dead as complementary
  2. Healing Energy of Tibetan Singing: from Fire to Water
  3. Contemplation trough a Javanese Mantra: Buddha is with us (Javanese singer)
  4. The Monk Dance: Energy as motionless Movement
  5. The perfect Mandala: Gong as circular breathing

Forest

  1. The Beauty of living creature sounds
  2. Disrupting the harmony by man hand
  3. Celebration dance of Universe
  4. Simple song (Papuasia singer): Simplicity for clearing the path

AncientRain

  1. Gods and Demons: Water as Purification
  2. Balinese Celebration: Trance Dance
  3. Fires in the night: Burning with Kechak singers and the drum

Echoes

  1. Thunderstorm in a Japanese Garden: Tension and Release for praying
  2. The Shakuachi sings: The Beauty of the Silence
  3. Thousand Buddhas: a Celebration of Peace

SacredSpirit

  1. The Desert Wind: Energy of the Spirit
  2. Native Indian Singing: The Vital Rhythm
  3. Pow Wow: Purification Ceremony
  4. Farewell: All has an Ending for beginning again