Kesäkuu on lähellä

June is close at hand. Looking forward to sunny days of Summer.

Bought a new printer - Canon Pixma IP4000. Had a bit trouble installing it and getting the prints right. Downloaded new drivers and changed finally cables. And that was that. Prints are mighty fine now. (Formerly with my previous printer - Canon BJC 8200 - them cables were ok...)

Lately have had some trouble with a couple of local area nets - one was with cables and other wireless. Haven't had enough time for Music - unfortunately. Hopefully tomorrow this will change.

Juha H.

Summer so close... (Juha H.) 

Poetry and Music-project after the concert - just a little bit smiling faces. So the whole was not so bad - not bad at all. At the same time there was opening of Art Exhibition. Behind us two paintings of Paivi Reiman Viipyileva valo III and IV (Lingering Light in English). (Photo by Sini)

Sithin kosto ja Karjalaan takaisin

Went to movies and saw Sith's Revenge. A lot of shooting and sword-wielding - some plotting and maybe the best story of these three new Star Wars- episodes. Good and evil were not so very "dichotomic" as in other movies of this Far away Galaxy. Still the story was quite "thin". Visual fireworks were very good and because of those the movie was definately worth seeing.

Jori - when do we begin to work on Karelia-project? I'm quite free and willing to begin next week. Should it be ready in High-Summer or later - in the Fall perhaps? Visual beauty and whispering silence of the forest could be one starting point. Lakes shaking off their cover of ice in Springtime with that tingling sound. Leaves falling and rustling in Autumn's bright morning...

Juha H.

beyond pogosta 

The passenger in Karelia

Hard trip is over and now when Im sitting in the front of my PC should I study education now ...but I have so many things going in my mind. Huh!
Karelia, the place where we had a museological tour, is some kind of mythical thing for me . Thou I have never been there because its now "autonomical" part of Russia. I expected much from the trip. But two big Lakes in Europe (the other one is the biggest in Europa, Lagoda) and tight program required impossible. We visted Kizi and old Valamo and they were the most mytchical places for me (witch was nice!). But they were great places with mass of tourism.
We visited some completely new places in Ogoda (Aunus) witch the book Kalevala is sometimes thought connected. Old decayed cottages with little sense of pogosta and more sense of karelianism theater inside.
The music I have made is composed or played mostly in karelian manner, like I were playing kantele not piano. Piano is often kantele for me. I like long sounds with rich timbre and sense of minor in major with nice percussive diatonic plucking.
I´m planning a improvisages show about karelianism, so I took much photos and videos to video deejaying them while playing live.
Buy the way I think Karelia should be deallocated!

Poetry and Music-project: Juha Hintikka (flute, recorder and percussions), Markku Raatikainen (guitar and percussions) and Maija Piitulainen (recitation) (Photo by Sini)

Yesterday's Sunset (Juha H.) 

Ulkona tuulee

Jouko Takala and Eeva-Liisa Hovi-Saari visited. We recorded Jouko's composition Ulkona tuulee ( The Wind Outside or something in those lines in English). A beautiful but sad song in 3/4 about loneliness, November and remembrance of Summer. Singing and guitar are recorded. Later on I'll do the rest of the instruments.

Right now after a long, long Winter Summer is finally here. Should be the right time to record sad songs of coming Winter...

Juha H.

Miltei kuumaa

It was quite a warm day. Luckily no thunder and lightning. Dark clouds but not even a distant rumble. Recording and working with music was possible.

Eero Lahti of the Hoikkaset Ensemble visited and recorded violin to Jouko Takala's song Kuinka suhtautuisin ( How should I think about it). It's always very good to work with Eero. He's such a talented musician - a multi instrumentalist. And he is quite a storyteller.

Jori - the other half of the Improvisages musicians - is in Karelia, Russia. A round trip - monasteries of Valamo and Kizi, lake Ladoga and so on.

Juha H.

Runomusiikkia vielä kerran...

Poetry and music-project had a rehearsal - last before our concert. We went it through twice. It seems to be quite ready. In this case there are some things left a bit open. The possibility to improvise is important. Performances are always performed LIVE and pretty much anything can happen - no matter how well you practise and prepeare yourself for the situation before an audience. In studio you can fix things that are not good but in a live situation it's always the first and only time. And that's what makes it interesting.

Juha H.

Marsh - the green of Spring gets better and better... (Juha H.)

Improvisages ja musiikki

Been listening the music Improvisages recorded during the winter. Vast number of tracks. For two days I listened and pondered which would be the best takes. Now I have been able to reduce the amount of music down to about 50 minutes.

Juha H.

So subtle is the green of Spring. (Juha H.) 

Wlan ja Aleksanteri

Sini and I watched the movie - Alexander. I was actually quite surprised - in a positive way. Some critics here in Finland wrote some weeks ago that the movie was somewhat hard to understand - lame and not so truthful... Some of it was definately not so profound. But so many historical facts were quite correct - according to what historians I have read about him. Maybe them movie-critics here up north are not so knowledgeable of history - or they do know something about the past things as they are told and written - but they don't like the American way to express them... Well, some of the movie I didn't like but very much of it was quite good, possibly even truthful.

For the whole evening - before the DVD-movie - I worked to build a WLAN for our home. Now it's almost ok and ready.

Juha H.

Peaceful Locrette - an old compostion. It's in the Locrian mode or more like in a mode of Locrian mode - mode of Super-Locrian mode... Figure it out. Juha H.

Tuli! 

Kevät, ilta ja sade

Been notating a piece of music I wrote yesterday. Kevät, ilta ja sade (Spring, evening and rain in English) My handwriting is not so good, so I've notated the composition with my laptop. Unfortunately it seems that Windows Xp with Service Pack two doesn't like my notating software. Music looks and sounds ok, but when I try to write anything with ordinary words - chord symbols, names of the instruments etc. - the results are not so promising. Tomorrow I'll change to an other, older machine - and operating system. That's the easiest way to go. Right now I'm too tired to do it.

Kevät, ilta ja sade is for violin, flute, guitar and accordion.

Juha H.

blues men 

boom,boom,boom,boom

It looks like we have been busy lately. Many different concerts and music-things. And more is to come. Tomorrow I´m going to Pihtipudas (140 km from Jyväskylä in the middle Finland) to practice the art of playing keys in the blues band. Yet we have played once before with this band. Most of the pieces we play are same as Steve Ray Vaughn did with his band in 80´s. Repertoire consist of pure rythm and blues like "boom, boom,boom", "Im the man", "Pride and Joy", "Soul man"... These are not so difficult, but your need "good heart" and blues technique for play them in certain thorough manner. In the band we have very good singer from the famous middle finland hard rock band and also guitarists Janne Hämäläinen who is deeply devoted to the art of electric guitar playing. Other boys are from finnish dance band four wheel drive. We are playing couple of gigs in the summer in the Suovanlahti music festival called tractor jazz and maybe more somewhere else.
But the main purpose is to play music we like to play ! And that is fun. I gonna post fotos when I have them in the future.

After the gig at an Art exhibition. From left to right: Eero Lahti (violin), JH (flute), Kyösti Järvikallio (guitar), Eero Hautsalo ( harmonium) and Matti Paananen (violin). 

Pelimannit keikalla

We played a gig at the opening of an Art exhibition. Graphics of Simo and Pekka Hannula (father and son) were displayed at Laaja-Art, Laajaranta. Nice pics and nice gig. Many of those elder Hannula's pics I've seen before. It was of course nice to see them again. Actually I have at least one book of his graphics.

The gig. We never played together before. Most of the music was not known to me beforehand. Luckily there was sheet music for most compositions. For the rest I had a chance to improvise, which is never a problem. All music was Finish folk. Full house and smiling , laughing people.

Jori is right now having a gig of his own. He's accompanying a choir in Äänekoski.

Juha H.

Today 

Perjantai 13. päivä ja runomusiikkia

Poetry and Music-project had a rehearsal. It's getting better and better. Very nice. At the end of her recitation Maija exclaimed: "Damn good!!" That's how it felt for Markku and me, too. And after Maija's shout Markku had it a bit hard to play the last piece of music - Vanhapelto Forever. It seems that our direction is quite right.

Recorded bass for Kuinka suhtautuisin. Walking bass and so on... Nice composition - so happy-happy.

Juha H.

Hoikkaset Ensemble LIVE 

Kuinka suhtautuisin

Eeva-Liisa Hovi-Saari and Jouko Takala visited. We recorded one Jouko's composition. Merry and happy-happy springtime song Kuinka suhtautuisin ( How should I think about it in English). Jouko played guitar and Eeva-Liisa sang superbly. And I added a chicken-shake. Later on I'll play some bass, some more chiken-shakes and hopefully Eero Lahti from Hoikkaset Ensemble plays some violin to the track. Maybe later on Eeva-Liisa adds a second voice to the song.

Juha H.

Ja Hoikkaset Ensemble keikalla taas

Hoikkaset Ensemble first rehearsed and then had a gig. Small place, filled with people - very intimate and cozy. We played Swing-jazz, Finish and Russian Folk music. We had fun and it was quite clear that the audience felt the same. And there was a very good and hot sauna.

Juha H.

Mother's Day morning 

Project Poetry and music waiting to get in to their venue... (Photo by Sini) 

Miksaamisesta

Worked for 4 - 5 hours selecting the tracks for the next Improvisages CD-project. I had to be rude - had to leave out so much. And now there is 85 minutes of half-ready material waiting. Some of it was just doing the fade in/fade out on the track. In some cases I worked a bit more, for example took 3 - 4 minutes out of the middle section and crossfaded the rest together. I added only one instrument - a tenor recorder - to one piece of music. Almost all the rest is live playing. And what makes the music difficult to fix - to get rid of any troblesome spots - the original recordings are mostly stereo-tracks. It means nothing can be fixed properly. But then on the other hand - everythign is quite real. Why only stereo-tracks? While we during the winter rehearsed I recorded quite a lot of the music we played. I connected a laptop to the mixer's outs - just to hear what the music sounded. Now I try to fix what I can.

The length of the music, the amount of the material is way too much. I have to cut it down even more...

Juha H.

Runomusiikkia ja Improvisagesia

Began mixing Improvisages music. Actually it's at this stage just doing the selections. During the winter I recorded quite a lot of our jamming. This evening I listened some of it, maybe for an hour. And chose some whole jams and parts of longer pieces to work with later on. There is already quite a lot almost ready material. I'll try to make the whole no longer than an hour of music. Hard choosing.

Poetry and Music-project had a photo session. Sini was behind the camera and took some 40 pics. And based on those photos I made the concert poster.

Painting and brushes dancing. That's nice, Jori.

Juha H.

angel in the dust 

Music-mousike-poet and dance

Its been a long time since I´ve used english. But I have done plenty of other things lately. Some of you may know that Im studying education in different levels. So I may become a teacher in lower class and music teacher in general. In finland becoming a teacher is valuated high but studying is yet fun at certain points. We study for example painting. It has been very nice to try first time for example litography in my life. We also engraved wood and litographed that. Not until today I have found same thing in art as in music that is called intuition. Making art is a great deal improvisation. What you get is only visible (or hearable) variation of your original view or completely another piece of art.
Your pencilhand movement can also be like dancing. Improvisages could be also drawing in time or painting in motion, isn´t it dancing ?

Spring is here !! 

Runoa ja musiikkia

Poetry and music-project had a rehearsal. It is begining to feel real good. We added some instruments to guitar, flute and recorder - bells, rainstick, Thunder Tube and singing will add more color to mere words and music. Poems form a story - from pain and misery to realization of what life might be all about. Poems can tell mighty stories with just a few words. Deep and multi-layered meanings with seemingly simple lines. Nature revealed with a hint - a far away bird call.

I've every now and then written poetry, sort of. But I'm definately not any poet. To compose songs you need words...

Juha H.