Eeva-Liisa, Jouko ja Ableton Live

Eeva-Liisa Hovi-Saari and Jouko Takala visited. We recorded two Jouko's compositions, two songs - Yksin oisia aania kuuntelen (=Alone I Listen to Voices of Night) and Vanhan naisen laulu (=Song of an Old Woman). First of them is a story about a wife of drunkard - how futile such life is. And the latter is a sad/happy story of a poor woman remembered. Later I'll add bass, alto-recorder, percussions and so on to above-mentioned songs. And maybe someone comes here to play some violin...

Updated my Ableton Live 2.1 to 4.1. Both are Pro Tools-versions and thus not full software. Maybe later...

Juha H.

Paivityksia

Upgraded my Pro Tools 6.7 to 6.9. It was necessary. I haven't been using MIDI for a long time - at least not with Pro Tools. I've recorded music "for real" with microphones and all with no MIDI-triggery... Thought that MIDI might be useful someday in the near Future. But unfortunately I could not make the interface work with older XP-version of Pro Tools - so I upgraded and now everything works fine. . .

Juha H.

Lake Keitele, Finland. (Juha H.) 

Ducks (Juha H.) 

Hoikkaset ja itatuulta

Ensemble Hoikkaset had a gig. We played one song for the opening of the Wrestling Competition of Suolahden Urho. One march twice - when the competitors walked in and after the wrestlers were introduced while they trotted out to ready themselves for the matches...

Recorded my composition Tahtituulta idasta (=Starwind from the East). Two tracks of percussions, five lines of wx5es and flute. I wrote the piece of music yesterday. A simple eight-bar melody played twice with a drone underneath. In the beginning and end a cluster chord and some imrovisation in between. The melody was built around Japanese Kokin Joshi-scale.

It's party time for Perakamari. Let's have fun.

Juha H.

Mushrooms - isn't that quite obvious? (Juha H.) 

Cranberries (Juha H.) 

Wakaza ja marjan poimintaa

Recorded bass for my composition Wakaza. It is very pleasurable to play Bass Guitar. I like it very, very much. Wish I had more time to do it. But alas other tasks take so much of my time.

We, Sini and I, picked some berries - cranberries, more than twenty litres.

Juha H.

Wakaza

Began recording my composition Wakaza. I wrote it almost a year ago after listening to Frank Zappa's album Waka/Jawaka. Zappa's music has affected my writing quite a lot. I've collected almost all his music - LPs and CDs. But bootleg-recordings are of so lousy quality that I don't bother to have them...

Wakaza at the moment- five tracks of percussions, a couple of guitars, flute and two lines of Yamaha Wx5 with VL70. No bass yet. Hope I can record it tomorrow. And then I'll get my hands "dirty" with mixing.

Warm August day.

Juha H.

Full Moon last Saturday. (JUha H.) 

Petri Kuljuntausta, Sonata Arctica ja Bob Moog

Bought Petri Kuljuntausta's book On/Off. Massive paper back about the history of Finish electronic music. It's mostly about the beginning and formative years of original Finish "electronika" - about what classically trained composers did during the 1950ies and 1960ies. And there is a CD included, which contains compositions of, for example, Erkki Salmenhaara, Usko Merilainen, Erkki Kurenniemi and Pehr Henrik Nordgren.

I bought also Sonata Arctica's CD Winterheart's Guild. Though the music is released in 2003 it sounds very much like the heroic heavy metal from the 1980ies.

And I just read that Bob Moog died last sunday. That's quite sad.

Juha H.

Sunset at the lake Keitele, Finland. (Juha H.) 

Sunnuntai

Sunday - a bit slow and lazy day, sort of. Played for a few hours flute. Sang and mixed my composition Eivat paivat loppuneet (=Days didn't come to their end). So - nothing special.

Juha H.

Today I got inside the Little Lighthouse at Lake Keitele, Finland. Above one pic from high above (... a bit more than three meters...) (Juha H.)

Alvin explaining Sini the secrets of mushrooms... (Juha H.) 

Eilinen meni

Yesterday is pretty much over. We came home approximately 10 p.m. and the line was down. Could not post anything. The famous Finish company that offers us our ADSL-connection has done this a few times this Summer. No good and a bit irritating.

Yesterday afternoon Alvin came to a surprise visit. And of course we immediately made a trip to Toropainen's cottage. Mushrooms, coffee, buns and nice stories.

Juha H.

Eivat paivat loppuneet

Began recording my song - Eivat paivat loppuneet (=Days Didn't come to their end). It's a story about life coming closer to its end. But the end is not when you die. It can be far before that - when the fire burning within turns to ashes, withers away. When you loose the skill and the willingness to find and see life's little wonders - in every moment or at least every now and then - that's when you begin to die. When that state of mind becomes permanent you get close to your death. Maybe it was what Jori wrote yesterday that made me begin to work on this song composed in Summer 2004...

Ten years ago we were forming a band in Jyvaskyla, Finland. And Jori was supposed to be its keyboard player. Then he got seriously sick. But there were already some gigs coming so we got Marian Petrescu to play keys. Marian is a fantastic virtuoso and it was very, very much fun to play with him...

We've been friends with Jori for a long time and it's always been very, very great to play, make music together. We've played music from Early Baroque to this day - very many Eras, myriads of musical styles. But I think that it's always been best when we've just jammed and improvised. That's when the little wonders and surprises of life most obviously happen. And they've sometimes been quite big ones... Jori will get well and we'll still play many gigs together.

Juha H.

monotropaceae hypopitys 

Where I am ?

Yes, I have been in forest. There is a lot lot of berries in the woods this summer in Finland. Exspecially raspberry. I have also played some gigs with four wheel drive band. I have been as a karaoke dj. In forest I have collecting (studying) plants with my poor little kellogs digicam. It would be nice to have good camera like Juha´s Canon. Mine is HP with 2,1 MP.
And bad news I´ve had wicked pains in my stomach and tiredness. Im affraid of the possibility of cancer comeback because I´ve once operated in 1995. Its little bit depressing to have pains all the time.
Playing with Juha is creative thing. I have felt myself tired in that field. Maybe my sickness is the lack of creativity. Let´s hope so !

Is this the meaning of life, love and everything - a hole in the sky leading us where or no-where? (Juha H.) 

A flower and the blue sky. (Juha H.)  

Onko Jori Metsan hamaryydessa?

Began recording my composition Metsan hamaryys (=Darkness of forest). It's a left-over from the Kukkiva Maa-project which we did earlier this summer. (References in earlier postings...) Somber music from the Back-Forests of Finland. Should I add some humorous noises tomorrow?

But where is Jori, my comrade in Improvisation. Last time we met was June this Summer. After that - only random e-mails. I'd like to have some more dialogue in these writings. And very much I'd like to make music with him, again. Probably he's been pretty busy with his studying and gigging.

Rainy day.

Juha H.

Rainy and kind of sad day. Summer 2005 is coming to its end - slowly and steadily. Rain like in Autumn has been falling down for so many days. The photo above is from Tallinn, Estonia. (Juha H.) 

No thunderstorm today. Only harsh wind and a rowan tree... (Juha H.) 

Kuumaa ukkosta odotellessa

And the day was pretty warm. There was a giant thunderstorm in Helsinki a couple of hours ago. Before the morning it should be here. Should I stay awake with my camera ready or would it be better just to go to sleep and let the thunder awaken me when it begins to rumble?
Time will tell.

All family, all kids at home. Hanna-Maaria came back from her trip to Lappland, Finland. J-V came to visit from his journey to Wacken Open Air Festival, Germany. And Jopo's been home all the while.

Began recording a composition of mine - Pienen kissan paivauni (= Daydream of a kitten). Three lines of synths - Yamaha WX5 connected to Yamaha VL70...

Juha H.

Back from Estonia. View from Toompea, Tallinn. (Juha H.) 

Tee tieta jumalille

Mixed my song Tee tieta jumalille (= Make Way for the Gods). My singing is far from perfect - actually very far... So yesterday I sang it anyways. And to make things worse I doubled the singing. Could not fix all to perfection in the mix. But then on the other hand this time I wanted to leave some rawness in the music. The singing is patched together from four or five takes - and re-takes. Didn't use any AutoTune processing. So everything is almost real.

Machine Men is on their way to Wacken Open Air Festival. Tomorrow Sini and I will travel to Tallin, Estonia.

Juha H.

Steamships and the Little Lighthouse. (Juha H.) 

Minne

Mixed my composition Minne (=Where/Remembrance). But when I thought it was ready I realised that the guitar track was no good. So I recorded it second time. Now it's probably good enough. The song sounds quite ready - Sini sang it today. Tomorrow I'll check the whole and maybe fix something just a little bit.

Juha H.

Yesterday on our way to Kuopio. Toropainen explaining:" This is probably the way and it seems that we have to swim." (Juha H.) 

Kuopijo

We - Sini, Toropainen and I - visited Bishop Arseni in Kuopio. It's been a couple of years since we last met. Great to meet an old friend. (Though Arseni is not so old. We've just known each other for so many years.)

While we were away J-V had brought us Machine Men's next CD Elegies - which will be released within a week in Germany and later this month in rest of the Europe. Right now Sini is listening to it in our bedroom.

And naturally today I didn't have much time for my own music. Before the trek to Kuopio I played my flute for about an hour. That was all.

Juha H.

Keitele-ship at the lake Keitele. (Juha H.)