Music Brothers Records: Hello Virna! Could you please tell our readers how you encountered the Stick and what attracted you to it?

Virna Splendore: I met the Stick in a Trade show in Milan in 1985, Jim Lampi was demonstrating it, and for me it was love at first sight, I think what attracted me, was the way Jim Lampi played it, I remember that I was moved to teats when I heard his playing, and I decided to buy the Stick right there, and that's what I did. After years I can see that probabily as most of the people who hear or see the Stick for the first time, I had a complete different idea of what I could really do with it, but when I realized what chances I had,the world opened up to me.

MBR: I know that you played other instruments before. Do you still play them sometimes?

VS: My first encounter was with classical guitar and piano, but I was very young, I also studied a bit of clarinet and lyrical singing, my main passion was the bass but I never studied it as I met the Stick before I could take any bass lesson... I play fretless bass sometimes, I love it though I don't consider myself a bass player, I like the sound of it and I allow myself to use it in a very non-conventional way. I still can play a bit of guitar, but absolutely for fun... I like to dare with instruments and I played guitar on one of my songs on the album Different Things.

MBR: Of all the Stick players I have heard, you probably possess the most beautiful and clear sound. What is the secret of your sound?

VS: My sound is in my mind and it comes from what's inside of me, Andy Summers' sound of the Police...funny uh? I play completely different music from that... but I grew up with that! Beside others of course... I try to create the sound in the smallest effect rack possible, as I confess I hate to bring around tons of gear to play live, and I never had enough money to afford too big racks... I used to have a Zoom 9000 at the beginning, but when I discovered the Pandora PX3 for guitar (thanks to Nick Beggs who showed it to me in a Stick Seminar) I found my cup of tea, I changed some parameters of the sound and I got my final Virna Sound: a bit of delay, a bit of reverb, a bit of compression and a bit of chorus! I have other two konds of sound that I configured and I use on my Pandora one is similar to Elephant Talk sound (compressor, Phaser, cabinet simultor) and the other is similar to a sort of Bill Frisell sound and I use it for soloing.

MBR: MBR: What kind of Stick do you play?

VS: I play 10 string light gauge 34" fret rails laquered with ACTV-2 pickup, I also use a XBL prototype same specifics but 36", and since few weeks I have a 10 strings 34"Deep Matched Reciprocal with Stickup (I was missing the sound of it!) and I am enjoying to discover the new tuning possibilities,the sound is really deep! My dream is a Grand Stick 7+5... but I am not ready for that yet.

MBR:Your first two albums, Guilty and Different Things, you recorded together with another Stick player Roberto Fiorucci. What was the devision of work on these recordings?

VS: Well, with Roberto we are like twins in playing, so it comes natural what part he plays and what I play. It also depends if I composed the whole song (so his part is written by me) or if we composed toghther. Usually he plays more bass rythms and melody chords and I play the melodies lines and the harmony structure on the bass side... on "Come Orologi", we enjoyed exchanging the parts while playing the whole song.

MBR: In the album Different Things, Tony Levin recorded as a guest artist. How was recording with Tony Levin?

VS:It has been the easiest thing in the world! I just asked him if he would have liked to play on one song,and he simply answered "yes". So I sent him a CD with the songs to allow him to choose on which he would have like to play and he sent me back an mp3 to see if I liked what he did, and gave me "white paper" to change the sound or cut parts, he sent me the CD with the Track and I added it to the mix of the song. For me it was a great gift, I will always be grateful to Tony for this gift!

MBR:The title of your first album is Guilty. I expected to hear some kind of heavy metal music, basing on the title. But the music of the album turned out to be very bright and clear. Why have you chosen such a name?

VS:Aahahahha, the title comes from a joke that me and Roberto always make of ourselves: we often feel guilty for things we should not feel like that ... they teach us to feel guilty for the original sin ahead for all your life long, and finally, even when there is no reason to feel guilty... you do feel guilty! So it's self-irony on ourselves... we are learnig to feel less guilty anyway.

MBR: Habla Conmigo is your first solo alùbum. How was recording alone in comparison with recording in a duo?

VS: Habla Conmigo is a very intimate work, it's a wishful thinking, it spread out of me so fast that I had not even the time to learn to play all the songs: I composed and recorded in an eye blink and then jumped to the next song...it took two months to do it... so to play live some of the songs would mean for me to go back to study what I composed, also I used different sounds which I never do live and it has been very fluent to play a solo on 7/8 + 8/8 tempos as I knew exactly what I wanted to do and expres,s which sometimes is not so immediate when you play and compose with another musician.

MBR: On Habla Conmigo we can hear you singing beautifully in one of the songs. Have you thought of trying yourself as a singer in addition to being a Stick player?

VS: Well for a long time I never thought about that, I always loved to sing, but I never considered myself a songwriter so I never did... a few years ago I started to do it, but only alone at home, never live... the truth is that I am too shy to raise my head and sing live!

MBR: Are you planning more recordings?

VS: I would like to, but it's a blank period for my creativity, I never force my creativity, and now it's definitely sleeping...

MBR: Your music has a kind of European chic about it. Have European music and arts influenced you greatly?

VS: I recognize a very mediterranean influence on my music, it's in my south italian blood, I grew up listenig to classical music going on with Deep Purple, Pink Floyd ,Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Elvis Presley, Police, ECM and Windham Hill records,Pat Metheney and pop of the 80's.

MBR: What music do you like to listen?

VS: It's been years that I've been listening mainly to my friends' CDs more than those of famous artists... I have a lot of friends musicians who make great music that I love to hear, but I confess I don't listen to music as muc has I used to when I was 20.

MBR: You are the official representative of SR Technology combo designed especially for the Stick. Can you tell us about its features? And when and where will it be available?

VS: The StickAmp comes from a combo amp of SR Technology, and I bought one of those amps after years and years that I did not have any amp. The sound was so clear and powerful in a small light combo, and the onboard mixer allowed to play with Cd, record to computer, play with other stick... but the main thing that cought me was the sound of the Stick with that Amp, it was the perfect Stick sound I was looking for. So I worked on the sound for a new upgraded version of the amp with SR engeneers and I brought one Amp to San Jose Stick Seminar to show it to Emmett and see if a collaboration could start for a dedicated StickAmp. Emmett liked it, and when Greg Howard came to Italy for a Stick Seminar, we talked toghther with SR engeneers to improve the mixer panel features for a better Stick necessities, like stereo line out, inserts on each channel, effect send and return, gain for different pickup impedences, and then SR made a prototype and sent it to NAMM Show 2005. Now only some small changings to improve a bit the basses are going to be made and then the StickAmp will be ready for production, hopefully by the end of the year.

MBR: You have participated as an instructor in numerous Stick seminars all over the world. Being limited by time, on which aspects do you mostly focus at such seminars? What advice would you give to those who are starting their journey to the Stick world?

VS: In Seminars, the time to teach is very compressed and one needs to teach the most things in the least time. What I try to give is, more than scales or bass rotors, to help the players to see how they can approach to a song with the Stick, or original song, some excerpt of my songs that have some particular parts that can be useful, to touch with hands how to play chords and bass line at the same time with left hand... or a cover like Liber tango that has a melody line, an ostinato, a rhythmical bass and chords for the harmony, so different parts to be put toghether and make the whole song be playable... also I like to teach multi-stick playing - I give parts to some players and other parts to others and make them play toghether and exchange then the parts between the players so that everyone has an idea of what bass or chords or melodies could be played to arrange a song. What I try to do teaching in seminars is to give a name to a chord or to a certain note, yes, but more I try to create the "immediate" fun playing a song and show that the Stick is a very instictive instrument one does not have to fear of.

MBR: What advice would you give to those who are starting their journey to the Stick world?

VS: Be free on the instrument, remember that besides being instictive it is also a very ergonomic instrument, per each note you play you can always find the same note at least on other 3 or 4 frets , maybe of different tymbre, but energy saving for moving up and down, the first time you have it, just let your hands fall on the fretboard and enjoy the sound, and last but not least: never think you are not able to play it, think you will be able to, like any other instrument!

MBR: Thanks a lot for your time, Virna, and good luck with your music!

VS: It's been a pleasure for me to answer to your questions, many thanks!

Other online interviews:

Interview on Talking Sticks by Jim Reilly

Interview on Global Bass by Andy Long