Winter Storm Romania

My friends,

Is time to congratulate uncle Mike. He finished his parts yesterday and did a magnificent work.

I guess from now on, he is going to sleep very well

Mike is going to chill out now and have some fun with us. Perhaps enjoining some red wine as well.

The song nailed yesterday by my two drummers is called “Crimson Deep”. Wow! It just sounds exactly like I was expecting it to sound.

I love challenges and since those times are long gone when somebody really was working like that in a daily basis, I thought why not to give it a try. And it worked!

Two excellent drummers with different styles, but professional understanding of the way the other one plays, so there were no problems to cut this song and an amazing, bombastic wall of sound was created.





It was just all about the arrangement that had to be fixed and discussed before they jumped behind their sets.





Will also recorded last night a song that I wrote few months ago. It still misses some lines of lyrics, but it’s almost done. The song has very nice mood and I am sure when the arrangement from Jim Dooley will be ready, the song will be just wonderful.

It has been very nice to work with Will, since he is absolutely open for different ideas and he is very creative.

We overdubbed some nice stuff for the songs with his bag of tricks that will give a different flavour to the music.



I am very happy to work with all these incredibly talented people. It has been amazing learning process for me once again.

Yesterday, Christian ...

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We are having FUN!

The house is getting packed now, since it’s crowded with Americans!!!

Doug Wimbish and Will Calhoun arrived here yesterday night. The lovely lady from the farm went to pick them up from Helsinki airport.



As you might wonder correctly, Will is here to record drums for some of my songs



I am very happy to have him on board. He is going to give different colour for some songs with his drumming, for sure.

Mike was recording three more songs and his work is almost done.

Only one more song to go that demands some experimentation as I wish that Mike and Will would play together.

Mike is going to stay longer in Finland though, since he will shoot his own video with my friends from Same-Eyes. He kills two birds with one stone

Ok. I need to keep on working now. Will be a long, but interesting day.



With love, Tarja

Last night we were late up, so it was a bit tough to get back to work early in the morning. The red wine did it’s “thing” you know…

Max came to the studio to work with us some songs and it was nice to have him around.



It’s always great when somebody else comes in and helps us to refresh ourselves. That way we don’t get bored.

It was so funny when I met him in the morning. After I gave him a hug, I told him “oh my God, Max you are even taller with the shoes on”. But he was NOT wearing any shoes! In a minute I realized that he was like “WHAT? Maybe I can come down from the mattress.” Well, Max knows me well already… I haven’t just seen him in a long time…

We are working very hard to get the songs in a shape where everybody feels good and comfortable. Mike did again amazing job today. He recorded few more songs and we are well in schedule.

Among those songs was “In For A Kill” that I have performed last year a couple of times with an orchestra. Now it turned to be really cool with the drums and the reference guitars from Alex. Is already very promising.

It was a surprise for everybody in the studio the cover song recorded today. We managed to refresh a great song from the 80’s. Is a bit sad that songs like this one nobody writes any more.

According to Mike; he played today the longest drum fill he had recorded in nearly 100 albums!!

We had fun with his performances and sometimes it felt that he did more than what he expected himself to do! So it made him very happy.

It was a tough day for all of us, but very rewarding.



With love, Tarja

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Incepand de acum chiar vom deschide un topic nou in fiecare zi pentru fiecare blog? XD
(Nu ar fi mai bun un singur topic despre posturie de la inregistrari? )

Tarja wrote:
Few more songs’ drums recorded

I slept like a baby last night. It’s so quiet here that it even feels scary at times. But it’s beautiful to work like this.

After Mike finished recording one song in the morning, we had some guests in the studio visiting us. Pete, our live sound engineer came to talk about next shows.



We are planning some crazy stuff for the next “world” tour. It’s just so fantastic to be able to decide myself the stage set up, the design of it and plan all the matters of the touring after all.

We need to start things already now, very early in advance, so that we are not running late when we need to hit the road with the new album.

Today was a magnificent day. Mike finished 3 songs and he is laying down damn good material.

“LL”, “DS” very heavy songs and “U” a beautiful ballad. You didn’t think I was giving you all the song names right away, did you?



The atmosphere is calm and relaxed in the studio. I am not pushing Mike to his limits. At least I hope so

I guess nobody likes to work like that anyway. Better your mood is, better you perform. That’s how it should be. And the question is, why try to make the impossible happen if the results sound already awesome? I don’t see any point in that. We have fun together, we do our best and that is what matters at the end of the day.

My friends from Same-Eyes Film Company are around too, shooting the whole production so that one day you’ll all see what we have been up to. Is nice to have things filmed so that we can...

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http://www.thegauntlet.com/interview/3831/573/Scorpions.html

The Gauntlet: Are there any guest vocalists like in the past?

Rudolf: Yes. One woman named Tarja [Turunen]. She is the old woman from a band called Nightwish. She is on the song "The Good Die Young".

The Gauntlet: I don't think she is an old woman though.

Rudolf: What! [laughs] No a young woman. I meant she was the old or last singer from the band [laughs]. Sorry. I should say former singer!

And today we started

Alex and Mike were sleeping long this morning and while they were having their beauty sleep, I was working with Jetro in choosing the best keyboard tracks for some songs.

It was not too shiny weather today, nor that cold, but since we are completely surrounded by snow, we still had quite a lot of light, which definitely helps.



I like to work in this studio where you can see natural light, because lack of light makes us very sleepy.


Good news. The drums arrived today and Mike was very happy, as the rest of us.

I had some time to think about the artwork for the album as well. Everything seems to be in place, so there are going to be excited times ahead. We will be doing the photo sessions for the album cover and booklet in few days.


The drum recordings started with success. Mike did a GREAT job with the first song. Wow, it comes alive and the groove is already lot better than in our demo.



It’s incredible, I am happy. Alex was playing in the same room with Mike while he was recording and I was singing in the control room. It is easier for Mike to follow us and to get the whole picture and feeling of the song when the guitarist is playing and the singer singing at the same time. It took Mike just few takes when the song was completely laid down and the result is fantastic.






Soon we will all go to sauna to relax. I was the one preparing it ready tonight, I also put some wood to the fireplace, so that everybody can enjoy himself after a long day.




With love, Tarja

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Tarja wrote:
February the 3rd, 2010

Terve everybody !

This is the beginning of the recording work for WLB.

Mike, Alex and I arrived to our tranquil studio in Hollola today.





Jetro is again our recording engineer and he is helping us here with preparing the stuff for tomorrow.



While we are waiting for the instruments to be delivered and built up, we checked the first songs for the drums recordings. We will start with Mike parts tomorrow.

We decided that the session would start with the first song that was composed for the new album: “The Crying Moon”.

It feels great to finally be here and face the fact that my songs are becoming alive. My friends, I have been waiting for this moment a LONG time.

The weather was beautiful today; plenty of sunlight and scenery with snow covered trees and fields. The news was that there hasn’t been this much snow in the last 30 years, at least in the capital, Helsinki. It’s a lot I can tell.

I’ll keep you updated.

And here some words from Mr Mike Terrana:

Yesterday evening I flew into Helsinki it was cold and dark, but Tarja, Marcelo & Toni were there to greet me, naturally was I very happy to see them….until they told me that I must go in the sauna and then jump immediately the icy cold waters of a nearby lake frozen lake….hehe….I’m not too sure that I can handle this….hehe
They say it will make me stronger……hmmm….I need to think about this.
Wednesday morning we arrived at “Petrax Studios” around 2:00pm, which is located in a remote part in the south of Finland. Lots of snow here, but its very white and beautiful. It’s cold outside, but the studio and apartments ...

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On the 2010 Miskoc Opera Festival's Opera-Rock Show, Tarja Turunen will give a concert entitled "Classic and Divine" with a symphonic orchestra and choir. The organizers decided to announce a contest for fans to make 1-1.5 minute long videos promoting this event. The participants may use Tarja's songs, pictures or videos for making the video. The contest's 3 winners will be picked by Tarja personally.
Prizes:
1st prize: Two tickets for the Classic and Divine concert, a Tarja gift pack, and a meeting with Tarja at backstage (only for contest winner).
2nd prize: Two tickets for the concert and a Tarja gift pack.
3rd prize: Two tickets for the concert
All videos sent in will be presented in the concert's official youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/operarocksh ow), so please send videos (in terms of size and format) that youtube can use. The videos can be sent to this email address: video@operarockshow.hu. Deadline: 1st of May 2010. This video is another sample what kind of videos we expect. Videos are welcome from all over the world!

Blog nou, special pentru WLB : http://tarja-whatliesbeneath.com/

My friends,

The final work for What Lies Beneath has started.

In these last couple of weeks I have been daily preparing the production, schedules, arrangements for the songs and for the album itself.

It feels great to be able to start the recordings very soon, since I have been waiting for the moment already for a long time. I am truly excited to witness how all will unfold!

The process for my second album started back in June 2008. Among the first songs that my friends and I composed at that time, a character called “Naiad” was born. The fantasy story of Naiad gave me the idea for the album title and for the whole album concept: What Lies Beneath.

Let’s start getting together into the spirit of the album.

Find here the lyrics of Naiad. It is a very important song in the album and means a lot to me personally.

Naiad

(Torsten, Angela, Adrian & Tarja)


She hears the distant soft caress

there in the gloom.

Colours surround with tenderness

guiding her through.


In the forgotten sweet abyss

another sound

twilight floating memories

always without.


Gloaming

there above the surface

an illusion

reaching down for me.



What lies beneath

beyond the ocean’s door

tranquil is the kiss

of the azure rising deep

sleeping ever more

Naiad’s mystery

what lies beneath.


Guarding their immorality

saints in the sand.

Stranger than beautiful eerie

an ancient land


Circle of sixteen turned to stone

and still they keep
...

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