Matkalle

Soon Sini and I will begin our journey to Rostock, Germany. Two of our children are going to travel with us. We'll be back on Saturday. So no blogging for a few days.

Juha H.

At Sunset on the Lake Keitele. (Juha H.) 

Improvisages jatkaa

Improvisages had a rehearsal. Just the two of us, Jori and I. (Ari is in Lappland having a few day's vacation.) Jamming with musical fragments and some real compositions. Very nice!!

Trekking with Sini on the Lake Keitele and in neighbouring forests. Bright and sunny day.

Juha H.

Kukkii ja valmistuu

Kukkiva maa - mixing and all - is finally ready. It took me most of the day. Now I'm tired but happy.

Juha H.

Joopa ja niin

'Them fragments' - poems, music and all - are ready . Kukkiva maa (=Blossoming Fields) Is getting to its Final Phase. Tomorrow I'll mix the pieces - poems, music and all - together. At the moment it seems that the project Kukkiva maa is going to be very much marvelous, meaningful, touching and what ever... Well, well. Edith Sodergran and Katri Vala are Great Poets. Absolytely. Maija and I just tried to keep up with them. Anyways for me the project is so important that for a moment ago I thought that it seems - I din't live in vain... Preposterous or not but it seems that I'm pretty happy and pleased of what I've done - of what WE have done!!

Juha H.

Kukkii maa vaan

Now I have mixed most of the music and some of the poems of Kukkiva maa (=Blossoming Fields). Tomorrow I'll continue. At the moment everything sounds fine. But the whole is definately not merely 'sounding fine'. Kukkiva maa is a story of a kind-hearted woman who loves beauty and all the good and positively humane 'stuff' in life... But the world around her is not so.

Torino Olympics. Just a moment ago Finland won Silver Medal in curling. Canada was better.

Juha H.

Lake Keitele before the Sunrise. (Juha H.) 

Kukkiva kummeli

All day I worked again with the project Kukkiva maa (=Blossoming Fields). Now everything is recorded, I hope and believe. Though it's not difficult to add or change something in this Digital Age of Audio Manipulation.

All our family were among those few hundred people who saw Kummeli LIVE tonight in Suolahtisali, Finland. Great Fun!!

Juha H.

Kukkiva maa jatkaa

All evening I recorded tracks to project Kukkiva maa(=Blossoming Fields). Now all electric guitars and bass guitars are done. Also most percussions and woodwinds are ok. Some flutes and recorders I left for tomorrow... But the real task is the mixing of the whole. It'll take for a few days.

Juha H.

Kukkiva maa ja kuvia

Maija Piitulainen visited. She recited and I recorded the rest of the poems of Kukkiva maa project. Still half of the music is missing. I haven't had the time to work with it - not for a few days. Too many other tasks and obligations. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Within a week everything should be recorded, mixed, mastered and ready. Some work ahead.

All evening Sini and I have worked with the pics we photographed yesterday. There are about two hundred of them. Approximately thirty we picked as good enough photos. Now Sini is sending them to our Web Site... (Unfortunately - or fortunately pics can only be seen with a password which is...)

Weather Report is playing their First album in the stereos of my Stuudio. Very relaxed music.

Juha H.

Juhlintaa

Sini's father had a birthday party at our house. The actual day when he turns eighty is next Tuesday. But during the weekend it's so much more convenient to have a party . Some thirty people attended, close relatives all. Nice celibrating - a lot of singing and music making.

Juha H.

While walking on the Lake Keitele. (Juha H.) 

Little village on the shore of Lake Keitele. (Juha H.) 

Valokuvausta

I've been photographing today - not more than in some days but the topics were a bit more diverse and different than usually. I like nature pictures - I like trekking in the forest. But today I photographed people. First I took more or less official pics for local veterans of the Second World War - for their forthcoming book. Second I photographed students celibrating their last schoolday before their final exams begin within three weeks.

Didn't have time to work with Kukkiva maa. So no recordings today. But of course I played flute and guitar for a few hours - just and only ordinary practising, fooling around with nice and entertaining elements...

Juha H.

Kukkiva maa talvella

Project Kukkiva maa (=Blossoming Fields) began recording its Art. Maija Piitulainen came to my Stuudio and we started tracking poems. Half of her recitations are now recorded, poems of Edith Sodergran and Katri Vala. After Maija left I recorded some more tracks - my parts, my music and compositions. Four or five electric guitars, three flutes and some percussions are ready to be mixed... Long day and a lot work!!

Now after sauna I'm tired but somewhat relaxed.

Juha H.

warming 

Good morning !

It´s 5:45 am and I´m awake. Now I have time to write something here. Yesterday night I drank some wine, so maybe its fault for my early appearance here. Yes, we planned improvisages upcoming gigs last sunday at Juha´s studio in Suolahti. He hade made intresting variations of ambience and rythm to jam with and we tried to use them with ableton live 5. I have had this idea of using ableton live in real time as an ambience machine. But maybe we should have one more controller to use that. It would be also intresting to use real time audio via ableton. My musical career start with electronic instruments I had when I was 10 years old. First I had italian Orla. It was an awful instrumet. But with that I learned to play pedals with my feet. After two years I had Yamahas organs C and D models (Thanks dad!!). I bougth also generator hammond when I was 21. It had the best sound cause of mechanical leslie inside of it. I bought also Juno-6, but I changed it and couple of other audio instruments to cottage in Karttula with my first wife in 1984. Now after 20 years more age I have Yamaha PSR-2000, Ensoniq-ASR-88 (I would like to change it to the rack-version, hey anybody !), and my last money went to Nord Stage !! I have had also Ensoniq VFX and Emu emax II with HD. I miss those I´ve changed. One of my musical friend advised me not to give up any electronic instruments. And what I did ! What happened to Hammond ? It´s another peculiar story. A long one. Maybe I tell it next time I write blog if somebody wants to know the story of my ole´ hammond. What I want to say here in improvis blog is that electronic instruments are very important to my musical thinking at basic productivity level. Computer software , softsynths and things like that witch I had plenty of, is kind of dream come true for me. But from where I get time for playing with them ? And this improvis here is more social than technical, however?

Lake Keitele. (Juha H.) 

Talvi-ilta ja Improvisages

Improvisages had a rehearsal. Nice, nice. Earlier I had created eight rhythm-tracks to go with our playing. And I had also written some music - hand-drawn on paper. Later I'll create some more backing tracks and maybe write some more music. Jori'll do the same. Gigs coming. Nice, nice.

And when our music is ready or at least has some sort of coherent form we'll add Ari's paintings to the whole...

Improvisages - as the name of our band implies - is especially interested in improvisation, artistic creation at the Here and Now . (Nomen est omen, hek.) We play written compositions, too. During the years we've made music together we've tried and played quite many different kinds of music - from Renaissance and Early Barock to Modern Classical Music; from World Music to Jazz and Rock. For the last few years we've concentrated on improvisation and our own compositions. Nowadays our music sounds quite a bit like Electronica-Something...

Juha H.

Lumi (Juha H.) 

Improvisages ja Torino

Created one more rhythmic sequence with oddity-effects for Improvisages to jam with - to create musical depths on top of it. So nice it is to work with sounds - and music. Again most of the samples were originally created by me. Sampling - finding and recording sounds - with suitably sophisticated twists is definately an Art Form in itself. Time will tell what comes out of the sequence I created today...

TV is sending the Openings of Torino Winter Olympic Games.

Juha H.

Improvisages ja sekvenssit

For all evening I've been creating musical sequences for the Improvisages. Hard and concentrated precision work that in the end should sound relaxed and comfortable. Fifteen minutes music, back-tracks for the rest of the band to evaluate. Mostly piles of rhythm tracks - different percussions and odd sounds... Most of the sounds I've sampled myself.

After working the whole evening with a laptop you don't inevitably feel physically very good and relaxed. The keyboard of a laptop computer is simply not ergonomically any comfortable to work with. Should I buy me an auxiliary keyboard?

Juha H.

Peaceful clouds above. (Juha H.) 

Pasuunapelimannit

PasuunaPelimannit had a rehearsal in Vihijarvi, Sumiainen - Finland. It was nice to play. Mostly music of local composers. But all in all Finish folk music - with the exception of some jazz. Some gigs coming.

Frost is not so bad, - 20 Celcius degrees. But the wind is biting.

Juha H.

Rosebush in the cold of Winter. Some sort of a sorry symbol of the humanity right now or just a rosebush...(Juha H.) 

Male Choir Metsot accompanied with the Big Band of Finish Air Force performing today in Suolahtisali, Suolahti. (Juha H.) 

Hoikkaset keikalla

Ensemble Hoikkaset had a gig at the Big Festives of local veterans of the Second World War. Nice playing. I added a photo here.

Lately I've been creating sequences for Improvisages. Gigs coming and some backing tracks are good help for our music. Two musicians cannot do everything. Something has to be done with sequencing machines...

When we, Jori and I, began these journals just over a year ago I thought that I won't touch politics, won't write about political things. But it just might be that today I make an exception. Oh muslims, muslims why do you get so angry because of a few satiric cartoons? Be reasonable, as one Jordanian editor said. ( He got sacked and arrested because of publishing the cartoons.) This destruction and anger is way out of proportion when compared to those pics. So is Islam a religion of peace?

Juha H.

Improvisages jatkaa

Improvisages planned to rehearse today. But alas no! Ari is in Germany - here - and Jori got a surprise gig. So I was left alone. I selected some music and Ari's paintings... and compiled an Art Video. Tahtihetkia (=Star Moments) combines approximately twenty Ari's pics to my composition Tumma tahti which Jori and I recorded last year.

Frost is back, -23 Celcius degrees.

Juha H.

Young trees and blue sky waiting silently. (Juha H.) 

Hoikkaset

Ensemble Hoikkaset had a rehearsal. We played mostly old-time music. Very little jazz this time. So sheet-music it was - though most of the compositions I had at least heard earlier.

I wrote one composition in Japanese Kokin-Joshi scale - at least most of it. Hope it will be performed next time when Improvisages go LIVE.

Caveman's Valentine on TV.

Juha H.