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With my main band, now 11 years. (I'm 28 so we were very young when we started.) All the original people are still in, and we added one person two years ago. The band's like a second family to me: we don't get together all the time (it's a periodic thing, everybody has other things in their...

Problem solved, Steve emailed me today. It was only some problem with spam filters! Enne

Hi folks, In March, I had an email conversation with Steve from the String Emporium, about a defective Finale bow they'd sent me. I sent back the bow, and Steve said they'd replace it with a new one. Since they day I sent the bow, I haven't got any answers to my emails (I've tried various...

Hi all. Here I wrote about my process of applying, re-applying and finally being accepted to study at the Folk Music Dept. at the Sibelius Academy. My first study year is approaching its end, and I'd like to write down some experiences. Something that's taken most of my playing and...

I've been married for four years now, and until this summer, I always wore my rings (engagement & wedding) on the left hand with no effect on my playing (DB). Now that I've started playing more percussion, I've started having the rings in a chain around my neck.

If you started in the 70s, you can't have started playing Bruno Mars :) Again, drop the exclamation marks. One per text is fine, two is too many, and never more than one at the end of a sentence. (A friend of mine, a professional writer, has a rule of permitting themself five !'s a year.)...

Hi, I like the content of your text. It's to-the-point yet personal, and it's easy to read. There're some little things I'd fix. The "I'm not..." bit is unnecessary in my opinion (why mention what you're not?) I suggest you drop the !'s. Also, the ";" is best left unused: you could...

This just came out, so I'd like to share it. This is my oldest band, playing since 2006 when we were high school kids; I wrote the tune; and the video was shot & recorded by Luomustudio ("Organic Studio"), a music video crew who record their stuff live, with no cutting or overdubs. The...

Oo, it wasn't that, it's just I'm not a "he" <3 It's going to be terrific, and it starts next monday. I believe I'll start a blog about it or something, I'll link it here then.

Hi again! everybody: thanks for the congrats! This process has been a huge lesson to me, in thinking that when you know where you want to be heading well enough, it's possible to get there eventually, even if your starting point is as far as mine was, in 2006 when I decided to do this. It...

Helsinki Pride week's just started. Before today's band practice, the rhythm section went to buy Pride t-shirts from the festival office. Wore them to practice. I'm the only LGBT person in the band (AFAIK), so got to love the solidarity!

I can't believe it - I'm in! The email came yesterday morning, and all day I read and reread it, to check if it's really true. Odear. This is something I've chased since at least 2007 when I first applied. Now I can start from the beginning again, empty myself to make room for more learning. No...

This is deep, good advice. Not just for today, but for life, to ruminate and chew on. Thank you.

Update zombie thread, one-two-three! A year ago I wrote I would be having a great year playing bass with great musicians and mentored by a terrific musician. This is exactly what happened. The constructive criticism I got last time was technical, centering on intonation and bow technique. To...

I heard the quartet play at the concert hall where I work (Helsinki Music Center) in November last year. I also had the chance to listen to their sound check. Mr. Patitucci was playing, and I was like, "wow, such a huge sound! I wonder what amplification he uses!" And THEN he turned the amp on...

Ooh, this sounds lovely to me! The most important thing, I think, is not to let (your) expectations become a hindrance: if it feels good, don't be afraid to do it. This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately: often, I realize I'm afraid to even think of some things because I feel...

How 'bout replacing bisexual with "cissexual"? Some men have been born with a female body and vice versa, so this would simply rule out being sexually attracted to those of us (and no offense taken <3 ). IDK if the term has been used like that, mostly (& erroneusly) it's used as synonymous with...

(Here's something in the same vein: )

I pay taxes, and would gladly pay more of them if it meant that things would work better, or even stop getting worse. From a musician's point of view, this is a small country and the music circles are likewise quite limited. Any addition to them, even for a little while, is good for this...

Ever consider studying music abroad? For example, my country has a free education system even at the highest level. The Jazz Dept. of Sibelius Academy isn't a bad place to study, I've heard, and there are a lot of international students there.

Hiya, I just installed an app called "Jailbreak the Binary" on my Google Chrome browser. It's about the best thing that's happened to me computerwise. Try it if you're a Chrome user.

Hi, the article, printed in the Vancouver Finlandia Club's newspaper, is about a ball the club organized, that had 65-ish people attending, and a group of musicians (accordion, bass & drs) played a variety of traditional Finnish, Latin and "foreign" tunes "in a professional style". The...

Hi LuckyPants, you'll be fine! Just one more thing: you're hiring the sound engineer. That means the band is the engineer's employer. The way I see it, the employer decides what they want from the employee, not the other way around. So don't worry about the engineer's personal preferences! It...

Thanks, people. This is good stuff. I'll be digesting it for a long time. I'm in no hurry, I'm 23 and I've a lifetime of playing bass ahead of me. I began studying music at university level last fall, and in this half-year, my knowledge of what I don't know yet has been growing exponentially...

Hi there, my bass playing is getting to the point where I can play anything I hear (clearly enough) in my head. I've been practicing a lot of hearing first, then playing, and got good results. But the problem is, I can't hear very fast. It's as though the music gets muddy, or unclear, if I...

Hi, I'm currently woodshedding on the title track to the CD La Linea de Sur. Here's the [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] I did a while back. I play the melody one octave down, but there's still so much to concentrate on...

&#8220;All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.&#8221; -Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342-ca.1416) Happy Christmas, TB LGBT!

I think the pedicurist comment refers to the movie trailer I linked a few posts back. The film is documentary of a Finnish punk band, Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, whose members are all mentally handicapped people (Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, etc), and whose songs are about what's wrong with...

Hi, I think this film is what the good old-fashioned "punk cred" is about.

I'm not into giving gifts just because you're supposed to, but I try to keep my ears open for what my friends are in need of. My bandmates are always talking about their back aches, so last Christmas, I gave each of them a massage gift card. They liked that a lot!

Are you already recording your rehearsals and listening to them together? That is something I always like to do when preparing to record a CD, with any band. This has (at least) the following benefits: You really get to know the tunes when you listen to them without playing at the same time...

Today is the International Transgender Day of Invalid Link Removed. Here in Helsinki, we gathered in the already darkening afternoon and lit candles to the memory of transgender people murdered by transphobic persons in 2011. There weren't too many of us gathered before the Parliament House...

I didn't, but our National Broadcast did. It will be aired sometime in the future, I don't know when (they record all and air nearly all concerts from the Music Centre's main hall). I'll post a link if it's available for listening abroad.

Such great people, great musicians! How a little thing, one kind remark or a little time just for one person can make such a difference. There were many special moments yesterday, during the concert but also backstage. Mr. Shorter's saxophones had got lost at the Paris airport, so the head of...

Hi all, this is just a little something that made my day today when I heard about it. I work at the Invalid Link Removed in various roles that all include being invisible to the public: in a concert situation, whatever needs doing that the sound & light & security people don't do, nearly...

My English vocabulary fails me in this, but what I'm trying to say is, even if I don't know him and probably never will, it feels so good to hear your son's doing well. Thank you for sharing! I've been reading a book called Genderqueer. It's an anthology of stories of real people, putting to...

I'm on my first visit to the States (Chicago and Upper Michigan), and honestly, I'm amazed by the distances people drive here. It's less than half a mile from the hotel we're staying to the venue of our first concert here in the UP, and the concert producer (after we told her we'd rather walk)...

Finland's biggest rock band in the 70's was Hurriganes (sic), a gtr-bs-drs trio with the drummer as lead vocalist. Invalid Link Removed

Thank you! I went to see my parents, and told them too. They weren't surprised :) My father was concerned about if I am still together with my significant other (I am, and the s.o. has known about this all along), and my mom said, "well you've always been a little weird anyway" and that was...

Oh God. I just came out - on Facebook, because it seemed best that way, to everybody at the same time. There's no going back now. I'm shaking all over. Oh God. I've got such wonderful friends.