On a field work trip

I've been listening my uncle's band clips from the website, The Seathieves. But I was also on a field trip to Latgale, which is region in east Latvia, I was IN the Russian border area, and the people there, they were nice! On a saturday evening we take part into traditional apdziedooshana, which is kind like finnish kilpa-laulu (competision singing - groups compete who can sing best about others and with best words and strenght). We were the youngs there, all the other groups, their average age was probably 60+. The place itself was called Medneva and its next to Vilaka. So its in the very north-east. On the traditional fest we had A LOT of food and A LOT MORE of home made beer, which was quite gourmet - beer with fine taste of smoke cannot be bad! Evening ended with jams with russian style accordeons (5-rows) and violin.

Next morning we continued to the church at 8:30. It was a catholic one, where I have never before been. I liked the way the kept the service, and thought about differents. I think, I still like more our wooden churches like in Joroinen, my first home village. After church we went to Natalia's house. Natalia was one of the oldest singer lady's in Mednevas Etnographic Ensemble. She offered us great amount of sandwiches and coffee from a can. Then she sang for us, and all the friends of her (born in 1920's) came to sing more for us. They song traditional songs like Tolku balss (Talkoo-laulu) and one Kalado (christmas) song as well. They wanted to hear finnish tradtional singing, so I had to decide fast what could be the old kalevala-tradition song which I could sing, so I went with lullaby: Nuku nuku nurmilintu (väsy, väsy västäräkki, nuku nurmelle hyvälle, väsy maalle mainialle... nuku nuku nurmilintu, väsy väsy västäräkki, nuku kun minä nukutan, väsy kun minä väsytän - so basicly I combined two versions together to make it last longer).

Last stop was to go for and look after Roma-people. (romanit in Finnish). As I had have friendly-relations to my own age Roma's at Finland, in Varkaus (they still wave me, if I drive on a same road with them...), for me it was interesting to look after them. Roma's in Vilaka where nice. We ended in one home of about 25yrs couple with one child, and some other young Romas came along. In the end the head of the village also came to dance for us, and his wife song with the younger people. I liked this encounter and in the end whole trip was succesful, so thought I and so thought all the others. I just hope this wont be the last one, even though my specialization lies in some other music styles, this one was most welcomed freshing!

On monday at Academy we had a talk how we felt about the weekend. I suprised all my collagies to let them know that all my interest (main) lies in the popular music, specially all the alternatives and harder corners of the popular sides. I told also about interest towards peace-songs in Finland. And my "bachelors thesis" about Latvian alternative music, specially about bands The Movies (now known as Tribes of the City) and hc-punk band In.Stora.

Here is some older ladies in their traditional suits - these ladies sings in the Medneva Ethnographic Ensemble.

And here are my Collagies in the stop-place in Gulbene. From left to right: Kristiine, from Latgale good trad. singer, Anda, my teacher, doctor of music, violist, Vita, mom of 2 kids, great person, conductor, Inese, quiet nice girl from Jelgava, good singer as well, Austra, violinist (classical side) and really helpful schoolmate and Rasa, who reminds me all the time about being a child of nature. Joyful person.

And here the second picture of our group in the morning of sunday right after church. There is also Ieva in the left, she has made her masters thesis about Roma-people in Ventspils and she teaches also us instrumentation and she is known also as a pianist. Old lady in the middle, in a blue jacket is Natalia, who was the leader of Ethnografic Ensemble. And in the most right there is this Lady, whose name I didn't catch, but she's the Balvu rajons (Balvi's areas) cultural chief or secretaire. Anyway, cultural person. Ohh yeah, and the guy in the picture is Oskars, nice quiet fella, who was our driver.

Most interesting thing in whole weekend was that all our experiences where shot by a journalists from the LTV1 (Latvian television 1) and we get into the telly. Me as well, and guess what: I got dubbed! So like Kalle said, being in TV is nothing, but get dubbed in TV is something :D All the cultural stuff was broadcasted on monday evening in 100g Kulturas, daily cultural half an hour where is allways interesting stuff. And my friends Gunta and Eliina, they both told that it was a nice shot. :)

And getting back to the first line of my text today, If I would made my uncles cd, I would done something a bit different, anyhow, I like the way it sounds also now!