Kitaraa

Recorded a guitar solo. Sixteen bars. Unfortunately I'm not very good at it. But there was no-one else to do it. I'm a woodwind player. So to play jazzy, flashy solos with guitar is a bit hard. I added some lines with my Yamaha Wx5 & VL70, too. That was easy, kind of natural. After so many years of playing different woodwind instruments that's how it goes.

Maybe I'll listen to some music of Mike Keneally. He's a real guitar player. I bougth today his CD The Universe Will Provide.

Juha H

Machine Men in Ice Hall, Helsinki warming up for The Wasp 

Machine Men

Yesterday Machine Men finished mixing their third CD. And right now I'm listening to it. It sounds very, very good. Melodic heavy metal. And the last song - so beautiful cellos. The CD will come out in June 2005.

Juha H.

Improvisages Live 

In the evening 

Vacation works

Nice there are people who have their holidays. Im also having part time holiday soon. Im studying in two different faculties education. Other one has winter break next week while other keeps going little bit. My children, yet youngsters are coming to visit dad and their friends in Äänekoski in the Middle Finland. Nowdays I like winter very much when sun shines and it´s over -10 degrees celsius. Its nice to have some skiing in the wonderful landskapes near Äänekoski city and over the lake Keitele.
We have planned also to go have some ice-hockey with my only son Janne. He is physically almost as big as I today. Its strange how fast time goes by.
I have had skating in the education studies lately. I became inspired again the thing I´ve had done much in my childhood. Maybe we will play with Jannes friends ice-ball.
It would be nice to hear what Jussi (the former guy of improvisages blog sites) has recorded or done lately in his home studio, maybe I´ll visit him also in my holidays.
Today Im practicing some Schubert lieder with my amateur singer friend Jouni. In the night Im going to work as a DJ in Alajärvi Hotel Kitronhovi and tomorrow Im Karaoke DJ in Pieksämäki. Karaoke is very popular in Finland. As a part time job I do 2 or 3 gigs in the week.
Its easy and sometimes nice work but when you have played 5 of 6 hours its mentally very heavy and hard to be positive as you should.
If sometimes Im aggressive when Im talking about music its maybe because of my work as a DJ. Today my musical bread is tiny little pieces over different places in the middle Finland.

Loma

Off duty for the next nine days. It is great. More time for music...

While walking home across the lake I pondered the following words:

"... to help the next poor sucker on this one way trip." (FZ)

That is the kind of a thougth I like. It may be that there is some sort of truth buried within those words. For me it is very important to try to help 'the next poor sucker...' But ! Is life a one way trip or is it round and round, birth after birth or back and forth something? And in jumps religion, ideology or what ever one keeps his/hers solid foundation... ( And in the world of physics rock or anything else may not be so solid.) Ideological differences make us quarrel, make us go to war. ( Though it's also because of power, glory, greed, world dominion...) Sometimes ideologies, our choices of the world view, may make us do good things to each other. Sometimes they make us evil. ( What is evil is an other question...) Ideologies war with each other and suddenly we don't do no good things to 'the next poor sucker'.

Frank Zappa was somewhat a controversial man. His thougths in his lyrics were not always nice. He saw the world from a different angle, from a different point of reference. I think he tried to say things the way the persons in his lyrics said - the way he imagined them to think, to act etc. He was not the person of his songs. He was an actor and had some fun. Or was he a scientist studying all the weird, wonderful and funny ways we people think and act...? The line above is a very good example of a seemingly simple but deep and important thougth. And in that sense it was propably not acting or a result of vivid imagination. Maybe he saw the world so that we should try to help each other... But I like Frank Zappa especially because of his instrumental music. He was one of those rare - very rare- people playing mostly rock-oriented music, who could write valid compositions for a whole symphony orchestra. So many rock musicians can't even read music... (Though this is more and more not so in Finnland because of the very good music education system.)

Juha H.

Perakamari Jammin'

Frosen Bottles 

Cold day morning 

Pakkanen paukkuu

It's quite cold outside - -20 C. The Moon is almost full. So cold is winter.

Right now I should be reading poetry - Katri Vala, Elvi Sinervo... But it may be that after a while I'm too tired to do anything. So no poetry tonight.

Juha H.

Winter Morning 

Improvisages preparing for a gig at an Art Exhibition 

Iltaruskon purppurapilvi

Sini and I watched a movie - Yanks. An american film. I've seen it once before. For Sini it was the first time. Anyways a romantic story.

Well, the next piece of music I'll propably record is going to be Iltaruskon purppurapilvi.
( Purple Evening Cloud or something like that in English...) Sini will sing it and I hope J-V (MachineMen , Atakhama ) can play some guitars on it. We'll see. Right now J-V is working very hard on the third album of the Machine Men. He is actually doing most of the engineering. And the fifth (?) album of Atakhama is coming out any day. So it may very well be that I will be responsible for the guitars, because J-V seems to be so busy...

Juha H.

Fall 

Kohti harmaata

Well, mixed a composition of mine Kohti harmaata. ( Towards the Grey in English.) Music itself is a mixture of electronic modern concert music and jazz - at least there are some improvised passages involved. Slow and somber.

For a couple of days I've been reading a military book. This time it is An Army At Dawn. The war in North Africa 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson. I like science fiction. Stories about imaginary future give me very interesting ideas how things could go - for good or bad. Science Fiction is often also visually inspiring. Those stories give pictures for my ears to compose music...I like history books, too. And especially I like stories about military history. Sometimes those stories give me extreme examples of total uselesness and stupidity of human endeavour, of human life. Military campains are sometimes so futile and destructive. Valour is sometimes mere stupidity - and so utterly in vain. And yet it seems that sometimes self-sacrifise and actual fighting for the good of other people, even for the survival of thougths and ideas, is ok.

Juha H.

Hi Noon In the Middle of the Winter 

Cold Winter Day 

Ben Bova

I just finished reading The Silent War written by Ben Bova. A science fiction story about big corporations and their leaders fighting with the help of mercenaries on the Asteroid Belt and the Moon. Fighting for power and profits.

But in the final pages there is revealed an odd ailien artefact - or an artwork. It communicates strangely and differently with every person.

" ' Communicate?'
'Perhaps it is a very subtle, very powerful communications device.'
'Not an artwork at all.'
'Oh yes, of course it's an artwork. All works of art era communications devices, for those who possess the soul to understand,' "

'Hmm' is not an answer. Maybe it's a question. Or maybe the listener, passer by wants to have some more. Art is not always easy to chew. I know many people who are unable immediately after experiencing an artwork to say anything about it. They need time to reflect. At such moments silence, not saying anything or 'hmm' is what they can produce. Anyways art needs feedback to stay alive.

Juha H.

How are you today, artist ?

It is nowdays very hard for me to start making art like music . There is so much things going on every moment. Maybe I have depression, but I think that Im not the only one. Is anyone listening ? Who cares ? I mean if you are in school, are other students or even teachers intrested in things we do or did. Im studying education and music education. Creativeness, they say is important but...seldom I get real straight feedback even if I have been in general test. Evaluation is not easy I know because you are always expected to be positive. Critic is always positive if you don´t want to make him, her or them unhappy. Its is always hmm and so.
The real question is very educational. How your feel ? How are you ? I think people today are not so happy, they have so much things to do in their work and life. They are anxious. They don´t have time to make real evaluation of things they live between or maybe not at all.
Is art dead like god in litterature (Nietzche) ?
Yes Im pessimistic, but Im depressed. But now I should be reading in order to pass the exam.

Sunrise 

Improvisages jamming after hours Summer 2004 

Onnellinen keltainen

It took me half a day to record some four minutes of music. Five tracks of percussion, bass guitar, a couple of guitars and two tracks of woodwinds. Finger tips in my left hand are sore, because usually I play nylon string guitar. This time it was steel strings. The name of the composition Onnellinen keltainen means Happy Yellow. I'm writing and recording music about colours. Tomorrow I can hopefully mix the track. That'll propably take half a day, too.

That's all I could do today.

Snowstorm rages outside.

Juha H.

Blogeista

Lately I've been reading a lot of blogs. All kind of and from all around the world. I'm very suprised about the multitude of human thoughts, of opinions, of differences in world view etc. Earlier I did read only news and science blogs. But for a few weeks I've been reading personal blogs. Some of them have been pretty intimate. People seem to do very different things in their daily living - some are interesting, some even weird and some outright boring. Some political and religious views are clearly peace loving - some are the opposite. Why do we seem to disagree so much? Some people write about little things in their daily living. And some seem to be more megalomaniac , willing to destroy - at least verbally- anyone who disagrees. Wov!

Wish I was better in languages - Finnish, English, Swedish and some Russian is not much... Luckily there are some good photos, even some pretty good photo albums. I like visual arts.

Juha H.

After sunset 

Perakamari jammin' at campfire summer 2004

Poetry and music

Make and I (Peräkamarijazzduo) practiced some jazz. Standards this time. At the same time we had some thoughts about the concert where we're going to combine poetry and music. Music will be our own but the poems will be written by finish female writers. We'l have a lady to recite the poems. She is pretty good at it. Maybe we'll have some visual effects, too...

We're gonna build some sort of a story with the poems, around them. About human life - its dissapointments, miseries, sadness etc.. But that will be only the starting point. Life is not like that. At the moment it seems that the story will go from misery to consolation, light and all the happiness stuff (Stevie Vai). Past is past. It's already happened. We can't change it much. We pretty much have to accept it. (Forgetting may be good or then not...) About the future we don't know. (Planning is okay but what really will happen may be something else...) What's left? Here and now.

That's the concept of our musical poetry at the moment.

Juha H.

Lonely berry in a grey winter day. The sun is gone and no friends left, it says. 

Tupac Shakur

Sini and I watched the movie Tupac. Gangsta rapper he was, but the story was impressive. Rapper, criminal, human and a very creative person he must have been. That's foer shure. His songs, stories were mostly not known to me. It seems that most of what he did was more like poetry. (Rap is more rhythm than melodies and chord changes... Rap is poetry.) But his background was definately and clearly in the Soul music.

I still like The Soul music. And I think it's especially because of the Bass. I like bass a lot. Even though I am mostly a woodwind player I play bass guitar, too. Trip Hop seems to be very close to Soul music. Former resembles the latter very much...

But even more than Soul or modern Triphop I like the music of Frank Zappa, Dream Theater, Charlie Parker, Michael Brecker, Jan Garbarek, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Weather Report, Bela Bartok, Bela Fleck, Einar Englund, Jethro Tull, James Newton, Pekka Pohjola, Children Of Bodom, Jean Sibelius, Nigthwish, Keith Jarrett , Miles Davis, Mike Stern, John McLaughlin, Al diMeola, Marian Petrescu, Jaco Pastorius, Machine Men, Spyro Gyra, Stevie Vai, Edgar Varese, Kaija Saariaho, Atakata, Chick Corea, Jimi Hendrix, Wayne Shorter, George Duke, Billie Holiday, Anton Webern, Herbie Hancock, Duke Ellington, Ralph Towner, Dave Douglas, Joe Zawinul, Cannonbal Adderly, Bill Bruford, King Crimson, Joachim Kuhn, , Hubert Laws, etc....

... and the list could go on so easily... Juha H.

Lake Keitele 

Nuorison ymmärryksestä

Young people don't have the same amount of experiences than those grown up, or elderly. Youngsters may have it hard to understand what life brings through more years. They can only try to imagine it. Some are good at it - some don't get it at all. But older people - all of them - have once been young. I think its easier for them to understand youngsters - the way they think, behave and so on. Only the times are different. We can't get it all. When we were young, for example the computers were pretty rude and inefficient. All in all I believe that we understand life better than young people - at least we've had more time to ponder art, life, death and so on.

You stydy education and musicology. Good for you. My studying is in a stand still. It's been like that for a couple of years. It may be that I'll never reach the Ph.D. and beyond in the philosophy of art. Improvisation is more important.

Juha H.

night time 

Night time light

"Do not go gently into that good night" (Dylan Thomas) Say no to death. But if the f**king rush is opposite to death, it would be more that what I need. It´s half past midnight and Im thinking what happened to my creativeness ? Who in F.Z´s band once asked : What happened all the fun in the world ? When you studying something in the age of 40, it can be hard to understand younger people. So you may identify to them and you will deny your experience, because its from the death age ?
I should be creative in different branches of education. Conducting is hard in music but can be hard also in school. Its not creative state when everything should be in control. Is this true also in improvisation. There is different levels of rules and avoidance of them when you making for example free jazz. I havent tried it for a long time, have you ?