Sini ja Juha Hintikka - Muinaisia tarinoita

New CD in iTunes,  HERE.  The whole is based on traditional Finnish poetry - Kanteletar.
Finns have two magnificent books of folklore. Kalevala is a heroic story of men and their adventures - and the greatest hero is a singer and musician. Kanteletar is filled with predominantly poems of women - created by them, too.   (Juha H.)

Syksyn lehdet ja Improvisages

Frozen leaves. - I added  here a video excerpt from our concert a week ago. It's some 6-7 minutes from the beginning of the happening. Three pieces of music - instrumental fragment, a song sung by Sini and a poem recited  by Maija P. on top of free tonal improvisation by Improvisages. (Juha H.)

Improvisages

Improvisages played a gig in Saarijarvi. Jori and I were part of Federico Garcia Lorca-evening - our own music, Lorca's compositions and poetry. Jori played his trusty Nord Stage 88 and I had my flute, recorder and acoustic guitar. The venue was packed full. And all was so nice!

Juha H.

Ensilumi

First snow. - Now the project of poetry and music that begun yesterday is done - mixed, mastered and burnt to CD. The whole is 56.01 minutes long. Sini sang one more song - words by Veikko-Kalevi Riihinen and the rest by me... Another exhaustive day. But happy I'm. (Juha H.)

Maija P vierailulla

Maija P visited. Once again I recorded her reciting poetry. After three hours of working she was quite a bit exhausted. It's hard to be very concentrated for such a long time. Now all poetry for this project is done. During the evening I recorded most of the music. Woodwinds and percussion. And now I'm a bit exhausted, too. But happily so.

Juha H.

Juliste

Gig poster for a performance early next year - Maija P with Improvisages. (Juha H.)

Aamu sarastaa

Above a composition I wrote just some minutes ago - Aamu sarastaa (= Dawn is breaking). For a very long time I've liked and admired Japanese poetry. And one of my favorites has always been Ryokan. For years every now and then I've read his poems - in Finnish or in English. (My Japanese is non- existent...) Today I thought that now I'll begin this longtime dream-project - to compose Ryokan's poetry. (Juha H.)

Kolme kokematonta

Finally after almost three weeks of not recording anything I had some time to lay down a couple of tracks for my song Kolme kokematonta (= Three not yet experienced). Words are from Kanteletar. The poem is a story of three things a young woman has not yet experienced in her life - and she tells of six things she hasn't met yet: mother-in-law's bread not tasted, father-in-law's bridges not crossed, not born again, not a eaten raven's meat... And the whole is actually a story of proud independence of this young lady.

Juha H.

Kissa unta antaa

Nice day - quite a lot of music. JoukoT/MEP song Kissa kehraa unta (= Cat purring sleep) is recorded - five tracks of woodwinds and bass. Now only singing is missing. The whole is a peaceful lullaby.

Later in the evening Sini sang into Pro Tools Yotaivas (=Night sky) - Katri Vala's poem that I wrote into music last Fall. Now only J-V's guitar is missing.

One more rainy day - no winter in sight.

Juha H.

Virta

Music continues. I began to record backing tracks for my composition Virta (=Stream). The words were written by Katri Vala some years ago. It's a cruelingly dark story of a stream we're all floating - on a raft... And the falls are approaching - some cry, some sing, some laugh, some pray... In the end Pink Noize - on top of which I hope J-V'll play some guitar... Maybe tomorrow.

Juha H.

Katri Vala ja Onni

Finally, finally came the time that I began recording my compositions of poems written by Katri Vala . First song is Onni (= Happiness), a lovestory. I think it's good to begin a project with a happy, happy piece of music. Later I'll probably tackle with more sinister poems...

Sini is listening to Apocalyptica and their latest album Worlds Collide. Now I'm going to do just the same...

Juha H.

Katri Valan runoudesta

Now I've composed 20 poems written by Katri Vala. It took me a couple of days more than three weeks. This should be enough of written music for accomplishing my dream... Hopefully some day soon I can begin to lay down the backing tracks into Pro Tools so that Sini may begin to rehearse and record the vocals. But now after the actual writing process is mostly done I may relax a bit, for a day or two.

Juha H.

Machine Men ja Katri Vala

Yesterday J-V called from Nurnberg, Germany. Pouring rain and no wlan. Today we got a postcard from Prague, Czech Rebuplic. It was signed by all the guys of Machine Men. How nice!

I just keep on composing poems of Katri Vala. Now there are 12 songs.

Well, 9/11 and all that shit what happened six years ago. So sad. Was it right what those selfish religious zealots did then? Did they really get into their heaven by destroying so many people then? And as a side effect what they did has caused so much turmoil and disaster afterwards through all these years...

Juha H.

Luikertelua

While in the forest today I had a close encounter... Sini and I were picking mountain cranberries. All was peaceful and nice. There were lots of berries. All of a sudden a viper was slithering just two or three centimeters from my fingers. Luckily it just slithed away. Viper is the only venomenous snake in Finland and fortunately its bite is not life-threatening. But poison in your blood could be very painful. - I've always tried to be careful while picking up berries. From now on I'll probably be even more careful. But forests and berries are so nice. And snakes are definately horrified of people. Humans are so much bigger. Slithering reptiles definately want to try to escape. They merely bite when they can't see no way out...

And when we game back home from the depths of the forest - with a bit less than 20 litres of mountain cranberries - I wrote a composition based on a poem written by Katri Vala. A really sad and lonely story of a snake and dying. Minor Blues, sort of.

Machine Men are in Nurnberg, Germany.

Juha H.

Katri Vala ja Machine Men - taas

After a couple of too busy days I finally had some time to write one more Katri Vala poem into music. Now I've created seven of them. But I think I have to write ten to twenty more... It'll take a few weeks - depending on other obligations...

Machine Men are in Aschaffenburg, Germany. Everything seems to have gone fine. Gigs have been great - at least that's what they've written in the Tour Diary. For the rest of the time they've just played cards...

Juha H.

Katri Vala

So it seems that I finally made the decision whose poetry I'll compose next. Today I already composed one poem. Katri Vala (1901-1944) was one of the great modernists of Finish writers. Now her poem Kotiinpaluu (=Homecoming) is scribled down on paper. It's a happy story of coming home and meeting again the eyes of ones lover. And I tried to write it as peacefully joyous music.

Juha H.

Pohdintaa

All evening I've been wondering whose poetry I'll 'touch' and compose next? So I did read some Finnish poetry. And I found a couple of possible poets. I've always liked Katri Vala and actually a project I did a couple of years ago - with Maija P. - involved her poetry... Tuomas Anhava is the other one. When I was young I liked very much the japanese tanka-poems he had translated for us Finns to understand. And then at that ancient time I of course checked some of his poems, too. Time will tell...

Juha H.

Maija P ja Mike Stern

Maija P. visited. She recited a book of poetry and I recorded her doing it plus composed seven little melodies for flute to go with the poems... Now the whole is ready - poems, music, cover pics, linear notes and label on the CD. I sent Maija a txt.message and she visited again to get her First Copy. Then, about an hour ago, I could give her the Final Product. Nice! The whole turned out beautifully.

Now I'm listening and watching Mike Stern's DVD New Morning the Paris Concert. Wonderful music. I've liked Stern ever since he played with Miles Davis. And that was more than 25 years ago. The other musicians on the DVD are very delightful, too - Dennis Chambers, Bob Franceshini, Dave Weckl, Bob Berg and - especially - Richard Bona, an absolute jewel of a bass player. And he sings so beautifully, too. Bona is a multi-instrumentalist, not merely a bass player.

Juha H.

Pukinjalkatanssi

Now and finally I had the time and mastered the poetry and music-project Pukinjalkatanssi (=Bock-leg-dance) - poems of Vieno Hamara and music ranging from J.S. Bach to my compositions compiled together. The book will be re-released in July and according to what I know the double-CD should be released at the same time.

Juha H.

Summer. Finally Sini got her voice back. Today she sang two songs that I composed in April and recorded the orchestra - with some help from J-V - in May. Edith Sodergran's poems - Toivomus (=Wish) and Sanoja (=Words) - are taking their musical shapes... (Juha H.)