Tiiatterija

Just came back from theater. Some young actor-students performed Maiju Lassila's novella/play Rakkautta (=Love) in Lutakko, Jyvaskyla. The story was sort of "tragical love story". But it was SO FYNNY - I still have a smile on my face. Rarely I've felt this good after experiencing a theatrical performance. And on top of all this the play was featured by Vehna of the Machine Men.

Earlier today I recorded some drums to Jouko Takala's music. But alas! He e-mailed me that the recording project is cancelled for the time being. That's quite sad.

Juha H.

Snow long gone - all melted away. (Juha H.)

Puuhastelua

Made two more versions of the Eeroviisut Folk music happening, one with everything - music, stories and all. And another one with one song less and no stories... I believe that now all is done.

And for the rest of the day - many little obligations.

The ice of Lake Keitele has almost melted away. Never has such a thing happened in my lifetime. This is puzzling.

Juha H.

Eeroviisut - one more pic. (Photo: Sini) (Juha H.)

Sateinen sunnuntai

Most of the evening I worked with Jouko Takala's music. Now there are two lines of woodwinds and bass recorded. And Sini's singing I did yesterday. Tomorrow I believe that I'll add some percussions for the tango Peli (=game). And then there is an other Jouko's tango waiting for more musical material, some more instruments. And Jouko e-mailed me today that there'll be a third tango, too. But this is not Argentina. I won't do any South American music. Tango is very much Finish music, too.

Some long walks with Sini in the rainy and surprisingly warm weather.

And after all these activities I felt that the whole day was kind of lazy...

Juha H.

Potkii

Right now the DVD-player in our livingroom is playing Dream Theater - The Score. Wonderful!! So High Musicianship!! Earlier this evening I listened to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and then some Jethro Tull...

Yesterday Mr/Ms Postman brought me some CD:s. Jouko Takala had sent them. There is a new project beginning. Today I loaded the music into the Pro Tools. I listened to it - and Sini, too. Well, she wanted to try to sing the songs. So I recorded her doing it...

Dream Theater is aWonder. Thank you very much.

Juha H.

Ensemble Hoikkaset keikalla

Earlier this evening Ensemble Hoikkaset had a gig. This time it was more or less traditional Schlager music. We played couple of hours for a very hilarious audience. All was well and ok.

Now I'm going to listen to some Blues. I've always liked the Blues, always.

Juha H.

Ralf Gothoni

Back from concert. Ralf Gothoni performed and condacted Jyvaskyla Sinfonia in Suolahtisali. Schnittke, Mozart and Schubert. Nice gig. The orchestra played well and Gothoni is a masterful pianist. He's actually a pretty remarkable composer, too. Years ago I didn't like Schnittke for reasons forgotten. But today I was positively surprised. I really liked his composition for piano and Strings. Thick chords chanced so suddenly into unshamefully beautiful major chords. Nice, nice - some moments were almost jazzy.

Drizzle all day.

Juha H.

Drops of ice. (Juha H.)

Eeroviisujen kimpussa ahertelua

Much of my day was spent working with projects related to Eeroviisut. Now I've indexed the CD. Music is ready. I created a picture story of the happening here. And there was an interview...

Juha H.

Eeroviisut

All evening I worked with yesterday's recordings. Now I've burned on CD the first version of Eeroviisut. Indexing is not yet ready . But I believe that the recording, mixing and mastering are ok. Tomorrow I'll listen to the whole...

Juha H.

Eeroviisut mainiosti onnistuivat!

Folk Music happening Eeroviisut succeeded nicely. Above photo Sini took during the Grande Finale. J-V recorded everything and the whole sounds good. Hopefully tomorrow I can begin to work with the music.(Juha H.)

Yellow snowflakes on ice turned Pink. (Juha H.)

Children of Bodom

Right now the DVD-player in my living room is playing Children of Bodom - their DVD Chaos Ridden Years - Stocholm Knockout LIVE. The Pa is set to quite LOUD. Effective and fantastic Heavy Metal. The musicians are extremely skilful and YES - virtuosos. I'm very pleased. Only thing I hope is that Alexi Laiho would do some real singing instead of just howling and growling. But the musicianship is amazing. I like skilful and virtuosic music and musicians. Bodom Boys are quite ready and able to do quite anything - surprisingly wonderful and artistically meaningful things. Already for some years I've like Bodom - so this DVD-thing is not really a surprise. I'm merely and utterly pleased because of the release. Great band!

Juha H.

Hoikkaset ja kovalevyn siivousta

All evening I've been cleaning my laptop's Hard Disk - and I'm still burning Pro Tools files on DVDs. Luckily I don't have to do lots of physical work. Cleaning in the digital world is lots of easier than the real thing...

Ensemble Hoikkaset rehearsed today. We're ready for Eeroviisut.

Juha H.

Eeroviisut

Folk Music Happening Eeroviisut is coming. Above the poster I did a few weeks ago. The photo is by Markku Lahti. (Juha H.)

Lake Keitele at Sunset. (Juha H.)

Muutosta

Changed finally Blog Improvisages to this more modern and up-to-date format. I hope everything goes ok with Blogger Beta.... At the moment everything seems to be familiar enough. Time will tell.

Added some more music here.

Juha H.

Snowflakes on ice. (Juha H.)

Machine Men ja Alvin

And today I finally had the chance to listen The Shadow Gallery - forthcoming CD of Machine Men. Now the whole is mastered and ready. Music sounds very impressive - fast, intensive, interesting and beautiful. I listened it twice in a row. This is rare. I don't even remember how many years ago I did anything like this. Maybe it was when I bought Mike Stern's CD These times. If I remember right I did listen to it twice the same day...

All my children visited which was fun. And Alvin stayed for a while. That was fun, too.

Juha H.

Musaa ja tuulta

Today Sini had the time to sing my song and composition Runo on taivas (=Poem is Heaven). Everything went Fine. Now I've mixed the music. All and everything is bounced to Disk with/through the Pro Tools.

It was windy day. So walking on the ice of Lake Keitele was not so nice...

Juha H.

Freeze on...The thickness of ice-cover is ten Centimeters. ( Juha H.)

Hoi Hoikkaset pakkasella

First time this Winter Sini and I walked across the frozen Lake Keitele. Every Autumn we wait this possibility eagerly. It's so tempting to cross the lake because it shortens our trip to the center of town from four kilometers to just one.

Ensemble Hoikkaset had a rehearsal. Everything is fine. One more practice-session and the group is ready for Eeroviisut.

Yesterday I added some photos here.

Juha H.

Pakastaa

After a couple of rainy days the weather is getting colder. The ice cover of Lake Keitele is 10 centimeters thick - at least in some places. So it should be safe to go across...

I've been working with my composition Runo on taivas (=Poem is Heaven). Actually everything except Sini's singing is recorded...

Today Machine Men have mastered their forthcoming CD The Shadow Gallery. Maybe already tomorrow I can listen to it...

Juha H.

Lake Keitele is frozen over. (Juha H.)

Winter came so suddenly. (Juha H.)

Takaisin

Back from Tampere Jazz Happening. The Thing was great. Noizy trio music for drums, double-bass and baritone sax. It may be that I've never before heard anyone playing baritone sax so powerfully and with so much energy. There was no lazy and beautiful mellowness of Gerry Mulligan or any ordinary baritone saxophonist toot-toot-so-often-not-so-interesting-playing... Matts Gustafsson could produce with baritone shere screaming energy!! And the rest of the trio was very impressive, too.

J-V of the Machine Men visitited. He recorded some more guitars for the band's next CD The Shadow Gallery. Some great music coming.

Juha H.

Pakkanen

The weather is turning cold - for a couple of days, says the Weather Lady on TV. Well, -20 Celcius degrees is a bit cold at this time of the year.

J-V and Jarno of the Machine Men visited. They recorded or actually tried to record some more guitars for The Shadow Gallery. But they didn't get what they wanted , at least not yet. The Behringer sound-module they had with them wasn't good enough... Tomorrow they're going to try again - with another sound-module.

Finally after so many days I had the time to begin the mixing of my composition Syysmyrskyn keskella aurinko (= In the middle of the Storm - Sun). Everything's going fine.

What about the Improvisages? Ari is in Toronto, Canada. He's having an Art Exhibition there. Jori is probably gigging somewhere. And early tomorrow morning I'll be going to Tampere Jazz Happening.

Juha H.

Hoikkaset ja runoutta

Ensemble Hoikkaset rehearsed today. Finish Folk Music - nothing else this time. There is a big concert coming - so no time for jazz and other leisurely things.

Maija P. visited and recited poetry of Elsa Tolmunen. I recorded everything into Pro Tools. The whole process took me quite many hours. Now Tolmunen's book Elamaa kadesta kiinni (= Holding the life's hand) is done and burned on CD. Maybe later I'll add some music to the project. Today I could not do more because the whole must be ready tomorrow. And tomorrow it wouldn't have been possible for me to do it. The day has already been booked with too many other obligations. So no music, yet...

So I'm tired.


Juha H.

Lunta, lunta...

It's still snowing. Biking is getting a bit hard.

Jopo visited. We added more memory to his Amilo A1650 laptop. Well, it was a bit hard task. No good instructions. Almost all we knew was that the ripping off the keyboard was necessary... An odd place to hide the memory sockets. Luckily everything went fine.

Finally I updated a bit my Web pages. And added some music here.

Juha H.