A piece of my music history
NOTE: Pictures and music samples are available only in Finnish sites.

Already as a child, I experienced a moment of celebration whenever the father took out the accordion and the house or yard was filled with a wonderful ring, always by ear. Due to Dad's passion for music, we always had instruments and technology available. There was a desire to play with my father and so a few chords came to be learned. That's where it started and there was no going back. Next I got to know the Hammond organ. They had a two-line soundtrack, a foot bass and a rhythm machine, which is basically the whole orchestra and this was already in the 70s. My pravura consisted of Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of the Pale learned from the ear.

The recording technology was also introduced at the time. With two cassette decks, dubbing of different instruments was done basically indefinitely, although the sound quality deteriorated with each shot. But it was fun and instructive ... Dad took part in our playing sessions from time to time in our garage and recorded them too. Recordings from these times are still stored digitized. Below is some pieces from those times  ...

Then the band years began. Initially with cardboard box drums, acars (Mickey in and amplifier cassette rec on). Little by little, real instruments were made available with a help of our parents and the summer earnings. The first gig was at Littoinen Workers' House when I was 14 years old, the gig fee was a whopping 160 marks. Bands and lineups varied and most of the time I played drums or guitar at the time.

And of course the bands were also assembled in the army and during my studies at the college. During my studies, I also got to go to a great band school in the direction of Turku and Paimio, from time to time in the Kimara band, where I was spotted by my army-time roommate and bandmate Ilkka Aaltonen . In Kimara, I always got to grab the instrument whose player I was lurking at. Without training and with just an ear, I tried to keep up with varying degrees of success. The band always had an incredibly relaxed atmosphere with the lightest wings of Aaltonen's brothers' humor. 

In Honkajoki, then, the music somehow was left behind. Of course understandable: the young love took, the children came, our house was built and the work of the teacher principal took on his own. In the Pentecostal church though, I was the lead choir leader, accompanist and later in the Synsygus gospel band, and the record had to be made, too. Of course, there was playing at school as well, and there was a band and a choir at each party. Even the Christmas cassette of the school was pushed into an empty (our former) apartment in a studio. Here is one song from the album.

By the time more and more routine careers gradually left time and energy in the music stuff. Musical instruments and technology began to "accumulate" and and the dream of making and recording my own music began to come true. There are still quiet times on the road, sometimes there have been quieter times.  

There was of course one great music project in Honko school, too. I had an opportunity to produce a record Maalla on makeaa. I made the backgroud music and arr for the songs and pupils did the rest, great singing and performing. It was  really fine and rewarding  times indeed. Her is one song from the album.

And of course live music is a thing for a musician too. Sometimes in 2006 was born the coincidental Pappa Betalar. In the parents 'evening, I happened to be sitting at the same table with a music-defective parent and we decided to keep the jams at school. The first gig was in the night school of Hongo school and for a while there were enough gigs and time together for small-scale gigs at weddings, dances, etc. Hannu Syväoja of Pappa Betalar had another band that played as a trio. I got an invitation to come try the chores of a compos guitarist. That is the way to go, and now the grip of a keyboards kiosk is also part of the picture. There have been gigs in 10-20 each year, which has been a pretty appropriate pace when everyone has had civilian work. Now lockdown has taken the gigs and here we have to wrinkle in the home cavity and music nest. But nothing to complain about, domestication and whining in your own music nest. Well, maybe sometimes for gigs again ...