In order to not lose them, I transcribed those musical notes; suddendly, I
realized that they were giving birth to many musical tales about the Middle-earth.
I discovered my personal gate, putting into communication the real world (where I live) with the Tolkien world (that I love): the tear had been sewed.

In the next years, I kept on immersing myself in the Middle-earth through reading and, above all, by writing music..

However, in this process I never felt myself as a protagonist. The Tolkien's concept of "sub-creation" can help me to explain what happens when I compose music: the artist doesn't "create from nothing", or rather through the art he discovers a little share of the light: the truth.

Likewise, in the Zen philosophy applied to orient arts, the Master annuls himself, becoming a path [E. Herrigel: Lo Zen e il Tiro con l'Arco - Adelphi italian edition].
Mozart affirmed “to see the totality of the symphony that was about to
compose, like an apple" [H.Albert: Mozart - Il Saggiatore, italian edition,1985].

I have noticed, composing music, that in the moments of "authentic
inspiration" (not easily accessible) I feel to read something already
written, to play a music already listened. Then all the worries disappear,
it’s no importance whether the musical style is "in" or "out". We’re talking about lightnings not lamps!

Maybe, here is the secret. Certainly, I don't hypothesize that Tolkien uses
Zen techniques when writing his books.

Mario Polia, in his book "Omaggio a Tolkien" (Il Cerchio, italian edition,
1980) finds deep connections in Tolkien's art with different philosophies and
metaphysics, and notes that this art speaks more to the Heart and to the Soul of a man than to his intellect. One of the main points which gives great fascination to a book like The The Lord of the Rings is the extreme "sense of depth", this is not due only to the big verisimilitude or to the presence of a "mythology in the myth", to which the characters often refer.

Tolkien again comes in my aid, bringing again the question to his primitive
simplicity, in the short and affecting tale "Leaf by Niggle": "...He used
to spend a long time on a single leaf, trying to catch its shape, and its
brightness, and the glistening of the dewdrops on its edges. Yet he wanted to paint a whole tree, with all of its leaves in the same style, and all of them
different....".
In the moment of creative action, the conscious ego disappears; or better it's no longer possible to distinguish if you’re painting or you’re being painted, if you’re carving or you’re being carved. As the Zen Masters says: the arrow throws itself".

Obviously, the process is not that simple. For example, in my personal experience of music composer, I can say that the time spent to "strum" has always been longer than the actual productive time.

In addition, as Gianfranco de Turris said in his lecture during the Fancon
92, Tolkien in Italy has often been ignored, or even buffeted, by certain "literary official critics". Thus, I felt a bit isolated in my passion.

All that, at the end, had made me doubt till I lost “my”contact with Feeria.
There were two very distinctive makers to wake up again that passion in me:
the Eternauta comic magazine and my computer.

The computer has been the answer to my idleness, and to some objective problems, which all the composers have in common. This machine, almost magic (Tolkien probably would have recited the Pater Noster in Gothic before using it) is incredibly brisk in the music score press.

Besides, the computer is an incentive to creativeness, allowing the musician to easily manage complete groups of instruments and to listen to orchestral arrangements without having an orchestra; in few words, it’s like the discovery to be able to fly for whoever has always walked.

The Computer is also a trusted friend, following me during my concerts, functioning as a real and own "portable orchestra" in those compositions that otherwise would be unplayable on the piano alone.
Thanks to an universal language called MIDI (Musical Intrument Digital
Interface) the computer can play in real time an electronic keyboard or a
digital sampler, exactly like formerly I had played it, maintaining the same rhythm and expression too.

The Eternauta comic magazine instead, as well as keeping live in me the passion for the fantastic during all these years, is the direct cause of my first appearance in public as music composer. Thanks to the article on "Lo specchio di Alice" in the number 105, I heard about the Fancon 92, and just for fun I wrote a letter to the organizers of the convention.

Maybe Gandalf would have said that I was "destined" to read it.

At the end, the more important thing is that, through my musical work (at least I hope so!), I might communicate to everyone the sense of wonder, the deep and positive energy that invades who, with the eyes of a child, reads the Tolkien’s books.

It's an ambitious project and I am afraid I may seem not much humble but it’s the enthusiasm, that makes me express so, for the opera of a man that, in this dark century, has succeeded in communicating, in a very strong way, deep values and a powerful love for nature, mankind and the universe.