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Rafael was born in Caieiras(São Paulo, Brazil) on March 29th in 1988 and he decided to pick up a guitar and start playing after hearing the riff from the Angra's song named Speed by the age of 13. After being influenced by Heavy Metal and Hard Rock bands such as Iron Maiden , Angra , Mr. Big , Yngwie Malmsteen and many others, he decided to become very serious about his instrument and start taking some guitar classes with Marco Collona. It was the first Rafael's contact with music theory.

Due to his close friends huge influence of Iron Maiden, they decided to strike up an Iron Maiden Cover named Sea of Madness which perfomed live for the first time by coincidence on March 29th , in other words in Rafael's birthday.

After getting out from High School he started studying at Souza Lima which is one of the most respected Schools in São Paulo, there he studied with several teachers which definitely helped him with his musical development. He took guitar classes with Vandré Nascimento and Márcio Alvez who would teach some basic ideas of country music to him one year later.

Souza Lima was really important to get in touch with different ideas and different styles. The most important class was the classical harmony classes with Ciro Visconti (Diafanes) which introduced to Rafael a whole new world of possibilities and even more important the concepts from Arnold Schoenberg.

After sometime working with music classes (since 2003) and studying another some subjects such as singing with Camila Senne and Piano with Régis Gomide, Rafael was invited to play on Mariutti Brothers' Workshow on August 26th-2006 in Poços de Caldas-MG Brazil.Rafael did the openning show playing 3 songs (see the videos on the multimedia section), he also got good comments from everyone in that night including Mariutti Brothers (Ex-Shaaman,André Matos). After this Rafael starts to endorse Avs Bags (www.avsbags.com.br) , Sound Pickups (www.captadores.com.br) and ESI audio system (www.esiaudiosystem.com).

In 2007, he decided to start the music college focused on Compostion and Regency at Carlos Gomes college which provides to Rafael a really deep contact with the classical music and different concepts. At the same time he developed the whole idea of the website Guitar Clinic which nowadays has been viewed all over 90 countries becoming a reference for those who want to study guitar online and the website also features interviews with the biggest names of the musical business. By the age of 18-19, he had already interviewed names such as: Vernon Neilly, Chris Dale, Eric Martin, Richie Kotzen, Greg Howe, Kiko Loureiro, Rafael Bittencourt, André Matos Band,Wander Taffo, Ciro Visconti and many others.

To his great surprise during the interview of André Matos band, Luis Mariutti did a great compliment about Rafael's playing and he told people to listen to his work.He also got some great responses of his playing from Eric Martin, Chris Dale, Tomati, Vernon Neilly, Kiko Loureiro,Wander Taffo among others.

In the beginning of 2008 ,the nineteen year old guitar player gets a proposal from the brazilian dealer of Crafter Guitars(www.crafterguitars.com.br) and becomes an endorsee of Crafter to use the model called "Crown Dx- 7".

Nowadays He is focused on managing Guitar Clinic, finishing his music college and his new project named Introspective which is on writing process for the first album and is so far formed by: Fernando Tommazi (Drums) and Rafael on the electric guitar and lead vocals.

Main influences: Mr. Big , Jeff Beck, Richie Kotzen, Paul Gilbert, Kiko Loureiro, Billy Sheehan ,Queen, Greg Howe, , Eric Martin,Steel Heart,Bruce Dickinson, DIO, John Fogerty, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Beethoven , Igor Stravisnky , Arnold Schoenberg , Chopin... too many names to mention :)