For the first half of Marchetti\'s life, he was, in his words, \"condemned\" to work at various bread-and-butter jobs, which included: grape harvester, brick-layer, saddler, wine-seller, metal-shearer, turner, frame welder, and an ample \"etc.\" besides. In music he is self-taught. His numerous attempts to carry out serious musical studies came to nothing, he says, due to feelings that the \"establishment\" is a complete farce. In the early \'60s he moved to Spain and founded the ZAJ group with his close friend and major collaborator Juan Hidalgo. Together they realized \"an infinity of projects in and out of music.\" His works have close aesthetic ties with the activities of Fluxus. He incorporates a great deal of concrete sound-material into his compositions, such as recordings of traffic noise or the sound of stones dropped down wells, and is known in the world of visual arts for his installations and sculptural modifications of pianos, i.e. covering them with small lights, or encasing them in red brick.