COVIDiaries 1

Keeping busy...

In the beginning there was something weird in China. Well, nothing that concerns us. Then yesterday the Finnish government announced that everything will be closed from now until forever. It happened pretty fast. A week ago I was rehearsing Turandot - the premiere would have been the upcoming Saturday. Then they cancelled all performances of more than 500 people. Alright, we thought, we can still go through with this, no need to panic. Other people panicked, however, and the supermarkets ran out of toilet paper, pasta, and crushed tomatoes. (Apparently this is what Finnish people need in case of emergency. Also pea soup cans were popular.) The other person who lives in this house fell into this ruse and also bought the pasta and tomatoes. We can now comfortably feed ten people for a week, but with a very limited diet.

Then on Saturday things started to happen. Suddenly everything was cancelled. My whole Spring - luckily not hundreds of gigs but enough to put butter on my toast - just cancelled. No butter, then. At least there was the toast, the teaching, that would continue as normal because surely they wouldn't shut down the schools?! Come Monday - schools closed. Alright. Most music schools in Finland continue teaching online, which is a new and frightful thing for us all. 

So, after a brief meltdown and panic about lost income, it was time to come up with solutions. Most of my Monday and Tuesday have been spent on informing students about this minor change to their lesson routine, and on planning the actual execution of the fact that I've promised to do this. There's a facebook group that shares thoughts and tips on online teaching, which is immensely helpful. It's going to be great, I'm sure (, she said, not looking exactly confident.)

Apart from coming up with online platforms and assignments for teaching, what can you do to weather the storm? Here's my unabridged advice from week No. 1:

• Clean house, clean mind. Already on Saturday I started to compulsively polish everything. It really helps to make me feel like I'm doing something useful, and it helps me feel like I'm in control, and after it's nicer to think about just how desperate I am in a spotless house.
• Buy wine and spirits. If Alko closes (Finland has a state monopoly on shops that sell strong alcohol), we're fucked. So yesterday we went to buy necessities, aka. gin and red wine, and immediately I was able to breathe a bit more freely.
• Since there's a significantly reduced amount of money coming in, reduce what's going out. I canceled what subscriptions I could, and applied for pause in my student loan payments. At least in Finland you can apply for this for some months if your financial situation gets shaky. Now might be the time to contact your union, too - are there any benefits you're entitled to?
• Make sure you have books. The libraries were open today for the last time in who knows how long, so I filled my bag with books. I recommend a variety - some poetry, something that makes you feel intelligent, and something easy.
• Puzzles help. They calm the mind and give you something to do when there's not much to do.
• If there are more than one of you in your house, make sure at least someone has noise-canceling headphones. They will save your sanity and the relationship.
• You will think this is a great chance to exercise, start yoga and jogging, and build a new you. It won't take you that many days to discover that the new you looks pretty much exactly like the old you who mainly watches netflix and takes naps on the couch. Remember that it's all about taking care of yourself - isn't that what everyone's been saying these past few days? Stay safe and all that jazz. Well. Where am I safer than on my own couch?!
• Follow the news with cynical, noncommittal interest. This too shall pass.

On Neighbors

A musician is not always a pleasant thing to their neighbors, but we can try. Here's how.

1. Soundproofing

There's not that much one can do to a piano - if you're rich, you can "float" the room, making it completely soundproof, or you can buy a detached house and take neighbors out of the equation. If you exist on a (musician's) normal income, however, your options are a bit more limited.

I used to diminish the sound by having a big blanket between the wall and the piano, but it didn't look all that elegant. So last week I devoted some time to a craft project: I bought foam sheets usually used in cars and glued them together to form one large sheet. Then I taped it to the backside of the piano with two-sided tape and that was that. Basically it reduces the sound about as much as a thick blanket would, but it's a much tidier-looking thing and doesn't gather all that dust. If you're interested, you can find these sheets from Biltema, for instance (thanks for the tip, piano tuner Tuomas Sievänen - his page www.sievanen.fi has a lot of good advice on soundproofing in Finnish).

Foam, two-sided tape, and the yellow felt meant to be under the piano.

Messy business, gluing the thing.

End result: barely noticeable 

The biggest issue is the noise going straight to the house structure from the wheels or the base of the piano. That carries very well and it's difficult to do anything about it. I've tried the solution recommended by F-musiikki: I have plastic cups under the wheels, and they have two extra tricks: a piece of felt under them, and a piece of rubber on them to block the sound.

Ta-dah!

Last but not least you can put a thick carpet under the piano, or use noise reducing felt - I already bought some, but that redecorating is still under progress.

Made to measure? Not quite...

2. Communication

Whenever I move to a new flat, I try to introduce myself to at least the closest neighbors - the ones I'm most likely to annoy. I tell them I'm a pianist and practice at home, and I ask them to come let me know if my playing disturbs them at some point. I've learned that people react to noise (aka. music) much better when they know what it's about: who's making it and why, and how to make it stop if necessary (by ringing the doorbell). One particularly adorable example of the latter is from a couple of years back.
I was practicing on a Monday morning when my doorbell rang. My downstairs neighbor had come to say hi looking really quite hungover. He told me that he'd been partying the previous night and the piano was not making him feel any better about himself, so he was going to go for a walk. He then politely asked how long his walk would have to be so that he could return to a quiet home. We agreed on half an hour, and everyone was happy. Not all the neighbors are as kind as he was - I have had some very loud rock music played on top of my more classical soundscape, which turned into a long and nasty argument about who has a right to play what and when, and what is just plain bullying.

The truth is that you can't please everyone and someone is going to get upset whatever you do, but you can still try to do the polite thing. I practice only at daytime when most people are at work, and I keep the amounts small. If I have to play a lot, I go to a rented space elsewhere or I switch to a keyboard with headphones. But as much as I'm taking others into account, it's important to remember that as a musician I have a right to practice at home. I'm being as considerate as I can, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to play and practice my profession at home. Communicating with neighbors is key, but if they're insisting you're a disturbance, bullying you somehow, or you just can't agree on what's decent, you can contact the housing manager (isännöitsijä) and the board of the housing company (taloyhtiön hallitus) to settle the matter. If you're renting, your landlord should be made aware of what's going on, too, and he might be able to help you. You have rights, too.

Hopefully you'll never have to act on my advice. It could be that all your neighbors now and forever passionately love listening to music being practiced (a whole different thing from music being played). One neighbor of mine told me, when I went to talk to her about my playing and asking if she minds it, that she really likes to listen, and the only thing that bothers her is that she doesn't know what the pieces are. That was such a lovely thing to say.
May all your future neighbors think like that.

On Female Composers

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the history of classical music is a predominantly white male effort. I find it weird that I never questioned this until a few years ago. It wasn't a good or a bad thing, it was just a fact, like water being wet. A debate about whether female composers should be more present in concert programs has been going on in Finnish media this year, and this question has been circling in my own head for a while, too. A great summary on the different views can be heard - in Finnish - from Yle Areena: Kare Eskola has a radio program Välilevyjä in which he comments on the matter. (The other episodes are awesome, too.) My view is that yes, womens voices should be more present. Why, you might ask. What I'm wondering is - why not.

When I was 19, my vocal teacher wanted me to sing Er, der Herrlichste von Allen by Schumann. I disliked the song from the beginning and found it hard to relate to the poem. The woman seemed like such a submissive idiot, crawling in mud in front of a god-like hero lover. I still don't like the song - now I just have more reasons to find it problematic. For me the main issue is that both the music and the text are written by adult men trying to relate to the feelings of a young girl. The whole cycle, Frauenliebe und -leben, is built on this extremely common foundation: a woman being portrayed through the eyes of men. Whereas Winterreise and other big romantic song cycles deal with the deep and dark stuff going on in the philosophical mind of man, Frauenliebe und -leben is about finding a guy, getting married, and then dealing with his death. Six songs were enough to sum up a womans entire existence, focusing solely on how she feels about men. I do not object to men writing about women (or to women writing about men), but what I thoroughly despise is that this particular song cycle is still being presented as the female view of things. IT'S NOT THE FUCKING FEMALE VIEW - THE CREATORS WERE BOTH MALE. THE FEMALE VIEW IS MISSING FROM ALMOST THE ENTIRE CLASSICAL MUSIC CANON BECAUSE WE WEREN'T INVITED TO THE PARTY UNTIL YESTERDAY.

(Oops, got a bit upset there. It's just really hard to talk about this calmly because I'm so overwhelmingly angry at the entire Western Civilisation.)

My personal anger aside, here are some thoughts on why I think more female composers works should be a bigger part - or at least some kind of part - of our concert repertoire.

The people who think we're fine as we are often use the same argument: if we start adding female composers works to the programs for equality's sake, the quality of the music will diminish. The E in front of quality suddenly makes the latter disappear. The problem with this argument is that most of the music I'd like to perform is extremely hard to find. So how did we know it's shit again? We haven't even heard it. One answer to this is that if the music was good, it would've become famous already. For me this seems like horseshit - becoming famous depends on so many factors. And even Bach himself, the mighty God of Music, was quite unpopular at one time. I wonder what would've happened to the canon we hold so dear if the musicians who rediscovered his stuff had decided that since Bach was forgotten once, he should stay that way. I'm not saying that every unknown female composer is a forgotten genious, but one of them might be. Bach was. 

Got sidetracked, again. What I wanted to say earlier in the midst of my anger was that many Finnish female composers works from the 20th century have not been recorded or even published, so I would argue that these equality critics are not acquainted with even a fraction of the feminine music out there. It is disheartening that these compositions are cast aside as inferior and uninteresting before they're even given a chance.

I'm currently spending a lot of time researching and planning concerts with only female composers music. Why? Because I think it deserves to be heard, and the way to make it heard is to play it, not rant about it. (As satisfying as ranting might be.) I want to perform music created by women and composed to texts written by women because it's a viewpoint I'm interested in. Because it's so rare, unfamiliar and hard to find. Because I've spent most of my career studying the male stuff and I'd like to see what else is out there. The unquestionably great music written by men has always had plenty of attention, and I'm not suggesting it shouldn't. It could, however, make room for others too. In my concerts it will. 

On Becoming an Entrepreneur

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I had a lot of questions about becoming an entrepreneur, and for many years I was firmly against it. Last week I decided to start a company anyway, and now I'm sharing with you the Q&A that went on inside my head before I made the decision. I must warn you, this is a very boring blog post that contains information instead of funny bits. Sorry. Also the information is only valid in Finland. Sorry again.

Will I lose all unemployment benefits?  (This was perhaps The Question for me.)

The magic word is PART-TIME. If you work through your company only part-time and you can prove it (=if the hours are so few you could realistically accept a full-time job), then you will be considered a PART-TIME ENTREPRENEUR and your unemployment benefits will be just fine. This is not related to money, I'm told - it's literally the hours you work they're interested in. If you earn most of your income as an employee, you can still stay in your old unemployment fund (työttömyyskassa). If, on the other hand, you'll start earning most of your income as an entrepreneur, they have unemployment funds of their own that you can join.

What do I even need it for?? 

I founded the company mainly to be able to work with singers professionally. The other options are not great for me, but they might be great for you - so here they are:

• Use cash and everyone's happy. No hassle. It is, on the other hand, quite illegal. 
• Use a company to do the billing for you. This is not very cost-effective, because they take a certain percentage of your income as a fee for making your life easier. Your life will not be that much easier.
• Use your daddy's company. This might be a fantastic idea, except that I don't have this option available so I had to fly solo.

What should I charge? What about all those taxes and other weird stuff? 

Charge what you want to earn, PLUS your expenses. If you keep the company very small, the expenses will be equally small, so you can also charge less. If you earn less than 7800€ per year through the company, the only thing you need to pay is taxes. Then up to 10.000€ per year you need to pay for a pension as well, and that's 18% of your income. Earning over 10.000€ in this business you'll have to start paying ALV, which is a Finnish something something tax, and that's 24% for teaching, less for some other things. So, earning more, your expenses might suddenly skyrocket, and you'll have to be aware of more stuff. 

My plan: keep it really small and simple for now to have time to learn all the stuff - plus it's less of a bother that way.

Should I make my prices public? 

I did. For me there's too much secrecy going on in our field, so I wanted to be transparent. It's so frustrating to always have to negotiate your salaries in the dark, not knowing if you're grossly underpriced. I still don't know if what I charge is in any way related to what other pianists make, but at least they'll have one point of reference now on my website. I wish I'd had that when I started working.

Will I have to get a corporate account? They're expensive! 

For a company that consists of a single person (toiminimi in Finland) you can just open a normal account that's free. Technically you wouldn't need even that - you could just use your own account - but it's easier for yourself to keep them separate. For tax purposes you'll need to separate the company's expenses from your own anyway, so best to have them in different places altogether. Then you can "pay yourself salary" from the separate account by simply transferring money to your own. No complex calculations needed.

How will I ever learn how to send invoices? 

By reading instructions and by downloading a free example from online. There are hundreds available. What you'll need is all the basic info that you know an invoice has, plus you'll need to number them. As far as reference numbers go, you do not want to get into those. They're a bitch, and they only work on corporate accounts. You can use a message instead - all you need to do is to somehow connect a sum coming to your account to an invoice you've sent.

Bookkeeping is so hard. Should I hire an accountant? 

If it feels impossible, you should. I decided to learn it. The simplest thing of all, if you want minimum hassle, is to just bill your clients and not use the company for buying things. Then your taxes and bookkeeping is really very Marie Kondo. Nothing there. If, however, you buy things for the company, you just need an explanation of each sum that goes out of the account. A receipt and an explanation. Then at the end of the year, you'll send all this stuff to a tax person who wants them. Not higher mathematics, this.
If you want to minimize the amount of taxes you pay, you can of course spend thousands of hours optimizing this and saving in that, but I couldn't care less. The taxes I pay would make you laugh (or cry), so I don't really care if I would save three euros per year in clever tax schemes. Let the state take all the euros they will.

What if I have to hire someone else?
Don't. I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to start reading about it either having read through all this other shit. Less people, less stress.

What does it cost to register a single-person company? 

If you do it online, it's 60€.

Will it be fun at all? 

Not sure yet, but I'll keep you posted. See you on the other side!

On Posting Recordings On Facebook

I posted a recording on facebook.

I haven't done this in a long time because of the questions. Every time I think about making a recording public in facebook or on my website, these questions appear in my head like an army of very loud mosquitoes. You've probably never heard them since I'm the Only Musician On Earth With Issues, everyone else looking pretty sane and normal and calm from where I'm standing. If one day, however, you hear this strange buzzing sound approaching you from a distance, you should know what's coming. Here they are.

"Is it good enough?"

It could've been better, you know. The bassline could've been more distinct, better shaped. There was the pedal at the end that I'm not sure about - too much? Too obviously romantic?

"What would Ilmo say?"

Ilmo Ranta is a Finnish pianist and one of the best lied coaches on this planet. He has very high standards that are always just out of my reach. Surely he would cringe at the first bar and make me play it again in a far more imaginative way that made the music shine.

"What if people will think that I'm really proud of this recording and not aware of the shit things?"

I have the urge to post recordings with explanatory essays that detail everything I'm not happy with, so that people would know that I know: "To whom it may concern: I don't claim to be perfect or great by posting this recording. I know the beginning is really quite normal (as in 'not extraordinary in any way') and that the transition on page three is a bit clumsy. I'm also aware of all the unclear left hand stuff that appears throughout the piece. With these shortcomings, your humble servant still has the audacity to offer her recording for the world to hear. Sincerest apologies, Jenna"

"Is it any good?"

This question has a tendency of repeating itself a lot. Usually there are no answers.

"What does this say about me?"

What sort of message am I sending with this particular piece? Have I posted too many pieces like this before - will people think I can't do anything else?

"Can I say I love this piece?"

Admitting that a particular piece is close to my heart - that makes it even worse. If I care about a piece very deeply, I'm supposed to have a Super Interpretation of it. My recording should just Pour From The Heart like little drops of magic gold wisdom and love. Listening to it should be a transcendental experience because of all these emotions that drip from the speakers like nectar. Oh well.

"There are already millions of recordings out there - why would mine be needed?"

Of course it's mainly about advertising myself. I hate that, but it's how it is. The songs are musical calling cards I put out there so people would get curious.

"But why not?"

If I get to this question, I'll post the damn thing. Because why not, indeed. However it could be improved, it is me playing the piano to the best of my ability on that particular day, in that particular space. That is how the song shaped itself in front of me that day, and I felt happy and content travelling through its landscape.

P.S. Us musicians, we face fear all the time. Fear of failure, fear of rejection. We find ways to cope with it and we learn to control it, but let's not fool ourselves by pretending it's not a part of our lives. One way I'm facing my own fears is writing them out for all of you to read - and with that writing process, letting them go. Another great way of letting go is simply focusing on the music. It is why we are what we are, after all.

How to Be A Succesful Musician (in 10 easy steps)

Succeeding as a musician requires two things: first, you need to be taken seriously, and then people need to remember who you are. I've received plenty of advice on how to succeed, and all of it comes down to these two essentials. Most of this advice I've got completely free of charge from colleagues who want to help a friend out and show the true path to greatness - and now I'll share these nuggets of wisdom with you, spreading the love. All you need to do is follow these 10 simple steps, and you'll succeed in no time.

You're welcome.

1. Wear make-up. Nobody will take you seriously without it. (You'll be surprised to know that a soprano told me this. I assumed it only applies to women, but hey, what do I know - a little mascara never hurt anyone.)

2. If you live in Finland, be in the Sibelius Academy. In the bachelor program, doing your masters or doctoral studies, teaching, as a janitor, just get in. Because if you're not in the Sibelius Academy, your career is as good as over - people will forget you in a flash. (Sorry, majority of Finnish musicians. Apparently everyone forgot about you.)

3. Win competitions. That's the true way towards greatness. If you just can't win, then at least (4.) have CDs to your name. Nobody buys them or listens to them, but you've got to have them to look like a pro.

5. It's easier to win competitions if you look artistic when you're playing, because then everyone will know you're a serious musician. (This nugget comes from a competition jury member.) Looking artistic means waving your arms around a lot, making faces, closing your eyes for emphasis, and keeping it visually interesting in general. The only people allowed to just sit there and play are 60+ male pianists whose CVs are longer than them. Everyone else must keep moving.

6. Build and nurture a strong online presence: facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube, soundcloud, blog, vlog... - update them regularly and curate your content so that it resonates with your target audience. Then make millions from ads and sponsor deals.

7. Have a teaching method, it's the new black. (This is forward-thinking news from Continental Europe - Finland is always years behind, but this is our chance to catch up.) I've launched the Color Star Shiny Pumpkin method that makes every child play like Lang Lang in just six weeks. It's part video game, part coloring book, and I'm selling the material on- and offline for 1.600$ per student.

8. Get your concerts right. A succesful musician only does two types of concerts: conceptual and market-friendly.

Conceptual concerts get shitloads of funding because they're innovative and new. They take classical music out of dusty concert halls and into the real world: to shopping malls, swimming pools, forests, and fire trucks. It's important to add new layers to the musical experience: at least you have to have an app for the audience, preferably an interactive video game, or then just make the audience build their own kites and fly them in an abandoned factory while you play Bach fugues on a guitar made from potatoes.

If you can't get funding, you have to make the audience buy tickets. The audience doesn't like difficult music (I've heard this from a few different singer sources), so stick to the golden hits of opera, throw in some relaxing piano classics and finish off with a musical number or two. You will get rich and then die of brain explosion during the 19.576th performance of Meine Lippen Sie Küssen So Heiss. May you rest in peace.

9. Have a company. (This I've heard from everyone who has one.) Nobody wants to employ a musician these days - they don't want to take care of all that legal hassle. Have a company and just send them the bill, that's how it's done these days. If you don't, they'll never hire you and you'll starve to death in the gutter.

10. Have attractive (and slightly suggestive) PR photos because sex sells and that's what everyone does these days.

...and that's it. Needless to say I've ignored most of this feedback. I want to believe that the work we do speaks for itself, and we will get by if we respect our colleagues, audiences, and the music itself. What more is there than performing and teaching from our hearts sincerely and honestly? Sharing music with others in a way that is true to ourselves, coming from our unique point of view? No matter how you define success, take a moment to appreciate and admire the career you have right now. Whatever it looks like, obscure or brilliant, love it. It's your very own. 

On Summer Cottages (the true story)

This is what we post on Instagram, but it's not the whole truth... 

Around midsummer, most of the Finns I know migrate to their summer cottages (mökki in Finnish). They post pictures of sunsets, landscapes with plenty of water, and it really is so beautiful you want to puke. I did the same a couple of days ago, but after seeing Instagram fill with like minded posts, I decided to come clean and reveal the true story.

1. Packing

You need a lot of shit in mökki. All the food, starting from salt and sugar, and all possible vanity items like toilet paper - you do not want to be a two-hour ferry ride away from the mainland with absolutely nothing to wipe your ass with.

Bed sheets, warm clothes, rubber boots (more about that later), sunscreen, a couple of hundred kilos of stuff you carry while wishing you'd stayed at home. Mökkis are usually situated quite far from said home - traveling takes years, plus all your mental and physical strength. 

2. The weather

The mökki I go to belongs to the family of my significant other. It's located in the outer reaches of the Turku archipelago, close to the open seas. IT IS NOT WARM HERE, EVER. The sun might shine, but go on a boat trip without your windproof coat and you're dead. A pleasant, warm midsummer here translates to +16 Celsius, and on worse summers it's more like +6 with insane wind that makes it dangerous to go outside.

3. Living standards

Some rich people have mökkis that are more like villas or houses, but the ones I'm used to are a bit more 18th century. There's no running water, OBVIOUSLY, so shower means pouring buckets of water on you, and the drinking water (that is safe enough to drink, I'm told (??!?!!)) comes from a well. Electricity we do have, which is very much needed for heating. The toilet is outside, a short walking distance away from the actual mökki. Mosquitoes love the toilet, and they're always happy to keep you company there. Spiders enjoy their time there too, pleased to greet you from the ceiling whenever you attend.

4. The fauna

There are swans swimming around looking like supermodels in a ComeToFinland ad, seagulls crying, swallows showing off their aviating skills, and if you're lucky, you'll see a seal on one of the islands not far away. No boat rides needed for meeting snakes, though. They're all over the islands, and they bite. That's why we always wear rubber boots here - I nearly stepped on one just yesterday. There's also quite enough of spiders, who do not limit themselves to toilets - they love hanging out indoors in places you'd least expect to find them.

There's one animal, however, that is the most infuriating and over-appreciated thing I've ever seen: the nightingale. They sing throughout the night. Sounds lovely? Then you've never heard them sing. For such a tiny bird they make a lot of noise, and they do not need to pause for breath. A nightingale sounds like what happens when you mix a bad stand-up comedian, a beat boxer, and all your ring tones together and add magic mushrooms. Nobody sleeps peacefully listening to that.

5. Activities

Sunbathing, boat trips, reading books by the fire? As if. 

Mökkis need constant repairing and attending to. You chop wood (or buy it pre-chopped, which means you just have to carry a couple hundred kilos of wood to the shed and pile it in neat rows, to protect it from mold - it takes a morning and a half), you wash the windows, you dust the cobwebs (quite literally), you fight the ever-growing jungle outside trying to create paths to move around the island, you decide to paint the mökki walls from outside and it turns out to be the project that costs all your remaining sanity plus your relationship, and you're constantly washing dishes (without running water, mind you). In the evenings you eat cold sausages because you can't be bothered to heat them anymore. We always go to sauna, but not-Finns rarely understand anything about that. It's a room where it's very hot, you sit there naked, and then you have a beer. Swimming is only for the very brave as seawater tends to be ice cold here, no matter the season.

6. The way home

After six days or so the longing for a real toilet grows so strong you pack your things and head home. Arms aching from work, skin covered in mosquito bites, and hair transformed beyond all recognition by the windiest of winds, you immediately start planning the next mökki trip. Mökki, after all, is the essence of summer - it is true happiness. For what is happiness without exhaustion and spiders?