[1] He approached the study of the guitar at the age of 8, learning the basics from his father Nino, jazz guitarist, and listening to Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, as well as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Van Halen.

[4] His teachers Joe Diorio, Scott Henderson, Don Mock, Jeff Berlin, Jennifer Batten, Gary Willis, Howard Roberts, Jamie Findlay, Jeff Richman, Mike Miller, Peter Sprague, Ron Eschéte, Steve Trovato and Tommy Tedesco, particularly influenced his musical style,[5] which is characterized by the use of complex rhythmic, harmonic and melodic textures, such as odd and mixed time signature, quartal harmonies and modal scales, as well as for the application of techniques such as the dispersion of the octave, the chromatic passages, the extended intervals, the superimposed scales, the string skipping and other.

[19] Dusting The Time, his second album, to which collaborated Dino D'Autorio, Lorenzo Feliciati, Mark Egan, Michael Manring, Tetsuo Sakurai, Adriano Brunelli, Federico Righi, Walter Martino, Don Mock, Sergey Boykov, Alessandro Centofanti, Ernesttico, John Beasley, Bob Mintzer, Enrico Corli, Nicolo Pasello, Emanuele Marchi and Paolo Marchi, was highly appreciated by critics and in 2014 was also reviewed in USA as one of the best jazz-fusion records of the year.

[23] His original song "Mahavishnology" was included in the 2010 collection Mahavishnu Re-Defined II - A Tribute To John McLaughlin, the second volume in double album of the musical project Mahavishnu Re-Defined, in which Gianfranco Continenza participated, among others, with Surinder Sandhu, Steve Vai, David Torn, Allen Hinds, George Colligan, Kai Eckhardt and Michael Manring.

[33] The Heaven Jazz “Gianfranco Continenza Signature” guitar, meticulously studied together with the Parma luthier Fausto Fiorini,[34] was presented in September 2007, in Milan, at the MEET, the Italian organization that supports digital culture and creative technology.