A BIG ton of trouble

@TINY ton of trouble (2013)

It's only 2:58 minutes. And when I look at "@TINY ton of trouble" it looks easy. First of all it was nervy of me to think that I could sing a song, even if I did take guitar and voice lessons twice a week with a patient teacher: Sharon Riggen. What kept me going was Eki.  He didn't know it, but when people looked at me like I'd lost my mind I told them, never mind Eki, my editor is a musician. He'll fix it. Poor Eki didn't have a clue that I was throwing his name around.

Last September I showed up in Helsinki and we planned to spend one day working on the project. To my surprise he thought the tune I wrote (lyrics and a few bars of music that came to me in the car) was pretty good. Then he went to work on the music. It sounded like a real tune when he played it on the guitar. He recorded it and plopped the earphones on my ears and told me to try to keep time to the music. I sang it line by line over and over and over. And thought this is a disaster with a capital D. But we kept going.

10 hours later after he chose the best parts and maggalized it - something he does to make the voice even and sound better - we listened to the finished piece.  I was a bit shocked, maybe he was too. It sounded  kind of good and I thought the images would carry it along. We agreed that he would finish the edit by Christmas. Eki always says his job is to put out fires. A lot of people call him when they're in trouble and need a finished edit by yesterday. Well there were conflagrations galore because by March "@TtofT" was still on the shelf. We decided to do it when I was back in Helsinki. It's always a kick to work with Eki, especially in his new studio, so it was worth the wait. But when I told him I loved making music videos and couldn't wait to start the next one, I thought I heard a groan.

Q You and Eki have worked together for a long time, how do you manage to get along?

A Eki has a few choice phrases to keep me quiet. For example: "It's rendering." And "Shut up Maggy."

1 May 2013: Eki Pulls an All-nighter