Sunset 

Tangon taikaa

Now the tango Droplets of Love is ready. Jouko Takala came to hear it. We listened the song for a few times and fixed a bit guitar. That was it.

Tango-project is now off line for a few weeks. It'll continue at the end of March. And then it may not be tangos anymore.

Juha H.

Runomusiikista

Poetry and music rehearsal was canceled today. One member of the project travelled to Brussels. She was supposed to go later this week. But there was a change in her schedule. We'll rehearse next week. At the moment there are two gigs fixed for the project.

Played some funk. Last week Pete the Bass Player brought the "tapes" , actually wav files with which I jammed. It was kind of easy and natural to blow. FunkJazz is still one of my favourite music style. It is fun to play.

Juha H.

Eilen

Last night I was too tired to write anything after recording and mixing all day. I could not even send a photo. Woodwinds, singing 4 - 5 tracks and mixing it all together was pretty much. Singing is quite taxing for me, 'cause I'm not a vocalist. But there was no one else to do it. And I knew what kind of voices - more like growlings and laughing - I was looking for.

Juha H.

Improvisages 

Improvisages

Improvisages had a rehearsal. I recorded almost everything. It's good to hear your ideas for real. While playing you can't see the whole, how musical components, different sounds, ideas and everything mix with each other. Our music is so much, so predominantly improvised. It's very hard to be shure whether your ideas are as good as they feel while playing. So it is good to record what you play. And afterwards the music can be made to a CD.

We do play compositions that are written, notated precisely . We play mostly our own music. But during the years we've known each other we've played music from early Barock to this day. That's what the life is all about... improvisation every day. In every moment we live there is a possibility or a need for improvisation. Life is a surprise.

Once again it was very good to play, create music.

Juha H.

Road in the forest 

Hoikkaset Ensemble at an Art Exhibition 

Rakkautta tipoittain

Recorded a flute track to Droplets of Love. Mixed the song again and e-mailed it to Kuopio. Now it should be ready.

Pete the Bass Player visited. It looks that there is a funk project forming.

The above doesn't seem much. But mixing music is pretty time consuming work and while mixing you have to be very concentrated. You can't do it many hours in a row. Have to have breaks. Fatigue of ears after listening for 3 - 4 hours is inevitable. So in the middle of the mixing process I had a walk with Sini.

Juha H.

Machine Men mastered today their Third CD at Finvox, Helsinki

Haetari

Recorded accordion to the song Droplets of Love. Reijo Korhonen from the Hoikkaset Ensemble played it. I myself blew a woodwind line to final choruses. Mixed the whole and e-mailed it as mp3 to Kuopio.

The weather was cold and windy.

Juha H.

Snow 

Rojektit

List of bands and projects I'm working at the moment:

Improvisages. Definately one of my main projects. It is a band and pretty much more. Jori and I are the core. Ari Liimatainen is the our visual artist. Actually right now he is one third of the whole.
Jatkoyhteys is closely related to Improvisages. It is a jazz-fusion quartet - add a drummer (Jaakko Liimatainen) and a bass player (Pete Mutikainen) and that's it .

Perakamari is my second main band. It's definately as important as the fore mentioned Improvisages. At the moment it's a duo. But the quartet format is at the making... Right now Perakamari is working at a poetry and music project. That'll come out in May. (And I'm working at an other poetry project, which'll come out in July...)

Hoikkaset is the third. It has played Finish, Swedish and Russian folk music. It has played quite many local compositions. In fact that was one of the main points for me to be a part of the Ensemble. Very much we've played the music of violinist Eero Lahti, of accordionist Reijo Korhonen and my compositions. Right now the band seems to be concentrating on tangos.

And then there is the project to record the music of Jouko Takala. Eeva-Liisa Hovisaari is going to sing the songs. We've worked together on and off for almost ten years. The music is mostly songs, beautiful songs.

Already there should be going on a project to record songs from the era of the Second World War...

Well, then there is a funk-project of which I know very little at the moment. In a few days I'll get more knowlegeable about it.

My own project Colours is right now approximately half an hour long. Sini has been singing the songs and I've done the rest...

Juha H.

Hoikkaset Ensemble (Photos by Markku Lahti) 

Hoikkaset

Well, today practised Hoikkaset. The group has been around for a few years. It has played mostly Finish folk music, but for some time we've been playing mostly tangos and some swing jazz. Today it was tangos exclusively.

I asked Reijo Korhonen of the Hoikkaset Ensemble to play some accordion on the tango Droplets of Love. In the afternoon I played the bass. It turned out not to sound very heavy, luckily.

Juha H.

Tango

Recorded a tango Rakkautta tipoittain ( Droplets of love In English ). Slightly sad Finish tango mostly in A major, but it feels more like A minor. That's how the tango goes ... Composer Jouko Takala played guitar and Eeva-Liisa sang it. A story of a woman who is happy when she's loved just a little bit. Small things matter... I'll propably play the bass guitar though I'm not shure how to do it properly. It just may be that I'll do it some sort of heavy metal way. Hopefully it's not going to be too exaggerated... But someone else has to play the accordion.

Juha H.

Improvisages 

Tilaus sakemannilta

Ordered some CDs from Amazon.de . Germany is clearly cheaper than Finland. And at the moment three out of four are not available here . At least I could not find them within thirty miles... So it was easier and cheaper to order them abroad. These are the artefacts:

"Prophetic Attitude (Musik von Frank Zappa)"
Le Concert Impromptu Wind Quintet

"Greggery Peccary And Other Persuasions"
Ensemble Modern

"Beware of Darkness/Spec.ed."
Spock'S Beard

"Blue Tattoo"
Vanilla Ninja

Music of Frank Zappa, progressive rock and Vanilla Ninja for my daughter Hanna-Maaria.

Juha H.

Sunset 

Iltaa

I thougth that this weekend I'd work a lot with my music. How wrong I was. The weather was so fine that I spent very much time just walking on frozen lakes with my wife Sini. Sun was bright and it warmed nicely. So I worked just and only "normally" - played 4 - 5 hours a day with flute and saxes... And composed one piece of music. And Made a DVD-compilation of my former works... There are still some hours left before sleep, before night. Maybe I should do something...

Juha H.

Sini and the lighthouse 

Sini and the factory fumin'.  

Tumma savy

Began recording Tumma sävy (Dark Shade in English). Some somber, low and slow synth lines. Tritonus in a low octave sounds little bit threatening. Something like that I'm looking for. Tomorrow I'll add some percussions and sound manipulations.

I've Been reading Finish poetry from the 20th century. We are making a performance. In May Maija Piitulainen is going to recite some poems written by Katri Vala and Edith Södegran. Perakamari will perform the music. First we select the poems and then we can compose the music. (Or possibly we select some of our earlier music...)

Juha H.

Sunset 

Talven häikäisy

Mixed a piece of music - Talven häikäisy (Dazzle of Winter or something like it in English). Happy peaceful song with a lots of major chords. A couple of days ago I recorded it - two tracks of percussions, bass guitar, acoustic guitar and two lines of woodwinds. That was easy, so was the mixing.

Juha H.

Spring is comin' , they say... 

Cold day again 

Improvisages 

Cold, cold day