Final countdown: Joining a band

Sometimes a person needs some arrows to survive.

A bit over two weeks left, and the band met for the first time to make art. If you've seen any posters or other advertisement, you probably know we're called Korwamato-ensemble. This group consists of

Johanna Kärkkäinen, flute; Kristjan Parts, clarinet; Natalia Vaskinova, violin; Iiris Tötterström, cello; and myself behind a piano. Itzam is conducting, since he's the one who made the stuff we're supposed to play.

So we met and we rehearsed, twice. For me it was a surprisingly big change to become a part of the band. Having been rehearsing with the sopranos alone for quite some time, suddenly I had to stop being the leader of the situation and start following Itzam's orders. I realized halfway through the first rehearsal that I'm sometimes just blatantly ignoring whatever Itzam's doing and taking my own tempi (a bit embarrassing, that). I also realized that I felt really defensive about my previous role as the person in charge - perhaps I was enjoying it more than I was willing to admit to anyone. However, as the rehearsal continued life got easier, and the second rehearsal was free from any personal crisis.

Here's a quick clarification about the life of a pianist:

Usually, when doing a full-scale opera, the pianist is the one rehearsing with singers, and then the band and conductor take over and finish the job. Our case is different because I'm also part of the band - and that's where my role changes.

Now enough about me. Rehearsals were first a complete chaos, as they always are. Luckily the musicians we've got are complete pros, and the second rehearsal was much more of a success. Jääkausi is not an easy piece for the players, let's get that straight. It's got microtones (Microtones are notes that exist between the notes you can play on the piano - they sound wrong but that's how they're supposed to sound. It's art.) - it's got complex rhythms (That's when people are playing really different things and it sounds messy but the mess is actually calculated to sound exactly like that.) - it's got fast things that change to other fast things. The other instruments have plenty of flashy and weird techniques to use, too, and sometimes we really sound like the army of the dead; which is what the director pretty much wants us to look like, too.

Today is yet another rehearsal, after which we will have a creative break for the rest of the week. That's due to a certain private event that needs some peace around itself. And then comes next week and that's the last and most intense one. Stay tuned.

Final countdown: Three weeks left, and where's the fake blood?

Three weeks to the premiere looks like this:

Eljas and Milla finding meaningful things from the score.

Jenna pointing out meaningful things from the score.

So we've got the date, we've got the posters and we've got some publicity. 

(If you don't have anything too important to do tomorrow at around 14.25, tune your radio to Yle Radio 1 - or your computer to Yle Areena. We're performing an unforgettably shamanistic duet from Jääkausi.)

But what's really going on? - I thought I'd tell you.

I'm little by little hunting down things we will need in our performance, like red heels, fake blood and white overalls. I'm also finding out things about the things we will need in our performance, like how washable is fake blood really? (Answer: some brands are easily removed, some not quite so) and how noisy are the overalls in Motonet? In the meantime Eero, our visual designer, is coming up with solutions like how to have a sun in a bowl, or how to create the eternal spiral of time. Itzam is going through the score and learning how to conduct it, and the singers are trying to remember everything by heart.

In the rehearsals we're going through a mixed phase, which is beautifully reflected in the multiple schedules I've sent to people, depending on what they need to know. There are the rehearsals with only the band dealing with stuff; rehearsals with band and singers, tying to make music; then there are the rehearsals where only I'm playing and Eljas is making his staging art with the sopranos; and finally the full rehearsals with everybody and everything happening at once.

The staging side of things is slowly forming into a coherent whole, and music, too, begins to diminish. Diminishing in this context - for me - is as follows: When you start to learn a new piece of music, it feels huge. Moving from one page to the next is a lot of stuff, and the end seems to be very far from the beginning. Getting more acquaintanced with the music it starts to feel more like a graspable thing - you begin to have a sense of its structure, the overarching shape, and it really feels like the piece is getting smaller. You're not looking at it like an infinite field of notes, but more like a detailed map you know how to navigate.

(Reading this again I have understood that explaining myself clearly is a skill I'll have to develop further. But hopefully you grasp my meaning, or half.)

So. Having this petite piece in our hands and turning into an acted thing where players are also doing stuff, lights are on and a conducter is whirling his hands around - that's what happens now.

Ps. Have you seen a poster yet? I've heard they look amazing.

1st Rehearsal: Singing pianists and press releases

The composer tries to look like a serious person.

Have you seen Sibelius Academy's Spring brochure yet? - didn't think so. So why don't you go and find one and see for yourself that our opera is there, picture and all! In case you had doubts about this project ever materializing, this should set your soul to peace. It is happening, and it's happening soon.

The other sign of a performance eventually taking place is the existence of a score. Itzam worked his ass off and last week the biggest and last scene of Jääkausi saw the light of day. Today our courageous team went through the entire thing! Scenes 1-4 were sung by Milla and Ammi and scene 5 was sung by me, since Milla had to leave a tad early. Itzam, Eljas and Juho heroically listened and tried to imagine what the scene would really sound like when done by people who can actually sing.

Lessons learned:

1) Playing from the full score isn't always a walk in the park. Sometimes you turn the page and really get lost trying to find your line. My reaction: play nonsense, swear and repeat the mistake on the next turn. The proper way: play nonsense, skip the swearing and look proud and professional.

2) A piano cannot be flute, clarinet, violin and cello if they play microtones. My reaction: play nonsense, swear and say it's impossible. The proper way: look at the composer knowingly and shake your head.

3) A pianist is not a soprano. Not in any way.

After this very instructive session there was some planning to do, so a select group of marketing professionals went to have lunch and discuss serious matters. Juho drafted a press release, and I tried to sketch a poster-to-be. You try to come up with clever things to say that don't sound like you're over-confident or downright delusional! Struggle we did, but some coffee and half-cooked spaghetti later we had a release and a poster plan ready. The next big step is to get the poster printed and spread it around; maybe in a week's time you'll already see it winking at you somewhere in town. And how exciting is that?

Facing the music: Rehearsing and rhythm

(This is actually Bussotti, not Zapata. You'll have to wait.)

 

It's always an exciting moment to hold a new score in your hand for the first time. Especially when it's a piece you've never heard, and especially when you really, really want it to be learnable in three months.

 

Last week I had first rehearsals with Anna-Maija and Milla, and we all were curious and nervous. Itzam had given us the third and fourth scenes (of the five in total), and we didn't really know what they were about until we tried them out together. Well, as it turns out, they're really good. But it took a while to establish that.

As a pianist playing for singers, sometimes it's not obvious what you should be playing - the actual music written in your part, the singer's part, just the basic pulse, some chords, or some creative combination of these. It changes with every piece and every singer, as they need different things from you. The rehearsal process also changes the needs - first you do one thing, then you should gradually change to something else. The final result, obviously (or hopefully) would be the stuff exactly as written. (Though I have to say that when playing more traditional works like Mozart or Wagner, I mostly play around 65 percent of the stuff that's there. But that's not really my fault, that's the piano transcript's maker's fault. I only have two hands, and they only stretch so wide.)

 

ANYWAY. So we started working and I tried my best to guess what Milla and Anna-Maija wanted from me, and in that hurdle it took a while for me to really start paying attention to the music. When I did, I loved it: it's contemporary alright, but suddenly it turns to smooth jazz and suddenly you've got a poprock duet that you catch yourself humming on the way home. It's got swing. You will want to hear this.

So now we practice this stuff until everyone goes Christmas. I came to the conclusion that for now I'm mostly playing rhythm and some harmonies, and some of the singers' lines. I tried to play what's written, but what happened was this: I had a complete rhythmic blackout. You try: tap a certain beat with both hands. Now start dividing that beat in two with your left hand, and then to three with your right. Change hands. Try different divisions of the three: short-short-short; loooong-short; short-looooong. For a pianist this is quite basic stuff, so I should be able to do this, but for now I mostly bang the piano for a while, swear, and return to the basic beat. I will conquer this by March, though.

(If you see a person in a tram/cafe/shop tapping both hands in a confused rhythm and occasionally swearing, come say hi. Probably it's me.)

Seventh meeting: It's a date!

An iceberg.

Ladies and gentlemen! After two months of suspense, we're proud to tell you we've got a date. Take your calendars out, people.

1st of March will be the grand premiere of our opera, Jääkausi.

(That'd be "ice age" in English, but no, it's nothing like the movie.)

The seventh time this group met pretty much consisted of getting our heads around the fact that we have a date. Many details needed to be sorted out - what should be done about all the little details? Lights? Props? How's the marketing? What would the program notes be like and who would write them? When's the general rehearsal? Who will play?

After talking about all this and more we started slowly to turn our attention to some rather bigger details, such as the composition itself. Itzam has been working hard, and some of the scenes are already taking their musical shape. There is a lot to think about still - composing for singers has many peculiarities. Some words are difficult to be understood when sung really high, for example, and that has to be taken into account if we want anyone to know what's happening on stage. And the music has to be learned and performed to Eljas, so he can start thinking about staging it all.

Now that the Sibelius Academy has given us the performance, we have to advertise it, too. So our meeting ended with a photo shoot, and everyone had their picture taken by... me. We're embracing arte povera to the fullest, taking photos on a mobile phone camera and editing them ourselves. Well. Making certain boyfriends edit them, which is almost the same thing.

After everyone took their turn of smiling awkwardly to the camera, we went our separate ways heads full of things to be organized and thought about. The truly exciting times have just begun.

Booking a hall: Adventures in Kafkaland

You'd think it was the easiest part of making an opera, booking a hall.  Especially if the opera in question was a part of your studies, and the project was approved by all the necessary officials in your department. Well. Let me set you straight at once: booking halls is a project of its own and takes time and dedication.

In the beginning there was an innocent email: "I'd like to book a hall. How is this done?" I was instructed to go to one of the info desks in our Academy - the N-house info was mentioned as particularly helpful. I happened to be in Musiikkitalo, however, and thought I'd ask straight from there, the hall in question being in the same building. I met a charming young lady who had never heard of my studies ("Opera coaching? Errrm, really?") and said that she really doesn't know about booking any halls, either. She suspected that someone else might know more, and I was inclined to agree.

Next I went to the particularly helpful N-house info, and there my innocent question was met with "Who told you that it could be done here?" - and I was sent to talk to an Important Planning Person. I was told I also could write an email to a special booking system, but I was warned that they rarely book anything if a student asks.

This Important Planning Person was nowhere to be found. She'd escaped the bureaucratic inferno and went on a holiday - but luckily she'd named two other Important Planning Persons to look after her stuff. I was told one of them was hiding in T-house, so I went there, and asked from their info whether the person in question actually was hiding somewhere near. This was said to be the case, and having asked for coordinates from a helpful, important-looking lady, I found him sitting in a corner. I told him my dilemma, and he said that the other Important Planning Person assigned to deal with these things would be much better suited to this task. Unfortunately she was somewhere else, but would come back soon. When she'd come back she'd have to go to a meeting, however, so she really wouldn't have time for any of this.

At this point I was starting to get nauseous. In my despair I went to meet the secretary of our department, an amazing woman who has a lot of answers. This time was no exception: the superwoman said that she'd just book the hall herself and explain it later if anyone came asking. We found a suitable time and she clicked the screen to confirm the booking, and then we found out that she didn't have the rights to book the hall in question. She could book other places, but not that one. No, not my second option either. She also suspected that the Important Planning Person I couldn't reach probably wouldn't have known anything about this kind of bookings anyway, just the regular ones.

Not all hope was lost, though - the secretary gave me a name of a man who might be able to help. He had helped the department in the past, but nobody knew if he still would. I don't know what this mysterious man does, but somehow he's connected to bookings and halls. Now I'm waiting for his reply, and I'm supposed to call him if he won't answer in the next couple of days. If he says he cannot help, I have no idea where to turn to next - but then it most likely will not be an issue anymore, since all the free times in the halls will be gone and we'll have to perform our opera outdoors.

I'm breathless and bewildered, and I've lost all faith in humanity by now.

Sixth meeting: Sorry, it's not going to be a musical

Musiikkitalo and its "terde" as we call it in Finnish.

Our sixth meeting took place in Musiikkitalo. Or rather outside of it, for the weather was glorious and meeting inside would've been a crime against sunshine. We were all there drinking (bad) coffee, and for the first time our new singer, Anna-Maija, joined us to talk schedules, politics and art.

Also Start-up Opera's new honorary member, three-month-old Helmi, was present for the first time. She participated mainly by eating and sleeping, and blinked approvingly at our grand plans.

There were scheduling issues to be fixed, again, and an approximate performance date was decided on. Taking into consideration our director escaping to Lapland, a marriage, and the fastest possible pace of composition, we set our minds to February or beginning of March. I will now take this to the authorities who will probably tell us that everything's booked and we'll have to perform this in a toilet. But hope lives on.

After scheduling issues came the reality: composing will start right now. It is happening. For real. So Milla, Anna-Maija and Itzam agreed on some rules - the fine line between comfortable and possible for human voice. Itzam has been strictly forbidden to compose difficult things, even though nobody actually believes he'll restrain himself from doing so. Composers are mysterious creatures, but they certainly have never been famous for making things too easy for performers. Well, seriously writing, one of our goals is to produce an opera that would be achievable to other performers too. This shouldn't be a work that's performed once and then forgotten, but rather something that would be easy enough - yet interesting enough - to be taken up again by somebody else. Usable music, one might call it. (I'm not saying we're doing a musical, sorry. It'll probably not be on any karaoke playlist anytime soon.)

And what next? We wait for Itzam to work his magic. In the meantime I write more grant applications and the others go hunting for helpers such as set and costume designers - all those people who know a lot about a specific something that we know little about. And then it's November and we all meet again, a few steps closer to an opera.

After a long silence, a musician rants

Being a musician is hardly a 9 to 5 job. Practicing, gigs, studies, pr, teaching - usually a musicians life is a creative cocktail of things to be scheduled. Sometimes, when I'm writing yet another list of things to do or practicing on yet another Sunday, I really wish I had chosen the other option: work and free time separated, and someone giving me clear instructions on what to do and when. Not to mention a regular income.

How is this related to our opera, you might ask. Well, it isn't. And still it's the reason why I haven't written for so long. Writing this blog has been on my to-do list for two months, but life got in the way. Life and poor time management.

So I find myself thinking about this eternal problem of the quality of a musicians free time. I miss free time without guilt. You know this, but I'll spell it out anyway: it's the feeling ​you get when you're watching TV or meeting friends or having any kind of a good time, really, and at the same time you're haunted​ by all the repertoire you're not practicing, all the emails you haven't sent - an endless list of unscheduled stuff. And who's doing the dishes, I'd love to know!

 

For me personally it can at times be hard to let the undone things remain​ undone. I find myself lying awake at night stressing about everything that I should do instead of snoring peacefully. I really don't think I'm alone in this​, either​ - and that's why you're reading this rant.​ I'd like to know how do you do it? How do you make your life work, what's your secret? I myself stay sane mainly thanks to lists and an incredibly patient driver/cook/boyfriend, who picks up the pieces when i run out of steam.

But please, tell us your tricks. And I'll add "update blog more often" to my next to-do list.​

Fourth meeting: Sometimes music pees on your shoes

An honorary member of our group, Mr. Patamon.

 

The fourth time we met I invited everyone to my very own box of a home. A lot of coffee was involved, even though we gave up on the morning-thing and met at noon. Juho had written two new chapters, again, and plans were made about how to proceed from here. Having decided that four scenes or so would suffice for an opera about 45 minutes long, Juho promised to bring a draft of the whole thing to our next meeting. That might be a very exciting turning point for us, since then the actual composing can begin.

All this was very exciting and promising, but just after the meeting was over I got an email announcing that we didn't get a penny from SKR. So we're as poor as ever. Talking of which, if anyone has some money they don't know what to do with, why not just give it to us? Donating to our enterprise would guarantee you a free ticket to our show - and maybe, if you're lucky, an autograph or two ;)

(...is it alright to use a smiley face in a blog that's trying to be somehow credible? No? Didn't think so, and did it anyway. Oops.)

But, money matters aside, in this meeting of ours we had a very fruitful discussion about cats. Iida, Itzam and Juho were the connoisseurs, since I don't know the first thing about them, but the others had all sorts of psychological insights to the matter: and cats in pairs, single cats, allergy and cats, and other such fascinating subjects were talked through. Cats and music wasn't an issue, but I got to thinking that maybe there's something there. The independent, I-don't-really-care-if-you're-there-or-not attitude often attributed to cats is very much what I'd think about some compositions I've attempted to play at some point or other during my glittering career as a pianist. The music just couldn't care less if you've got issues with playing thirds or reading more than ten accidentals in one bar - sometimes it feels like the score on the piano is staring at you mockingly, hissing, and probably later peeing on your shoes. Any similar experiences, people? Or am I just -

Never mind what I'm just. You take care, go to work, earn your salary, and send 15% to us. And I'll keep you posted about what's next on our way to the mysterious world of opera.

Meet the Group: Jenna

Photo: Anni Laukkanen

Jenna is a 25-year-old pianist who lives in Helsinki. As a child she wanted to be an accordionist, though. Currently Jenna is studying opera coaching in the Sibelius Academy and teaching piano in Keski-Vantaa music school. Rehearsing a solo concert program and some lied and chamber music keep her busy, but she manages to find time to write a seriously cool blog ;)

- What's good and what's not-so-good about being a pianist?

I love being on stage, even though it often scares me. And I really like accompanying singers. Practicing, however, can be so boring and frustrating at times.. Not to mention the constant worrying about money. But hey, it's a musician's life. Better marry rich.

- What other interests or hobbies do you have?

Books, food, knitting, crime and legal series, singing.

- Tell us something about yourself that others don't necessarily know!

I really enjoy singing pop, but most of the time I'm too ashamed to sing even at home.

Find more about Jenna from jennaristila.com.