My voice – Indie Star Ringa Manner
A couple of months before the pandemic hit Finland, musician and sound designer Tuomas Ahva started a podcast series to interview musicians just about to perform in Kontula Electronic 2020. As the world closed due to Covid and the festival got cancelled, Tuomas decided to carry on and release the podcast on its own – with too many musical gems to miss.
Lucky us! The star of the day is one of the most loved indie/electro stars in Finnish scene, Ringa Manner. She’s a singer and musician who plays in Ruusut, The Hearing and Pintandwefall, to name a few. Known for her characteristic voice, she uses live looping in her performances, looping both instruments and her voice. But how did she end up doing just that? Let’s hear what Ringa has to say about finding her own voice.
TUOMAS: Hello! So, who has invited me to her studio for this interview?
RINGA: Hello you! Yea, welcome to the studio of Ringa Manner here in Helsinki! I sing and play in bands called Ruusut and Pintandwell. In addition, I play solo as The Hearing and sometimes as Ringa Manner. Under my own name, I usually play improvised sets. Overall, the musical genres and styles vary a lot. It depends on the band and project name.
TUOMAS: Do you play something in Ruusut or is it just singing?
RINGA: I used to play guitar on a couple of live versions, but we don’t really play those anymore, so currently it’s just singing. When making music we are all equal composers. My ideas usually come from singing kind of choir harmonies on top of a demo song and thus developing the demo further. Sometimes I come up with a guitar riff or a chord progression on a piano, and then I develop it from my viewpoint as a vocalist. Sometimes I decorate the demo, sometimes I work more on the arrangement.
TUOMAS: So, you kind of compose from the standpoint of a player or singer.
RINGA: Yes. In Ruusut, we’ve also used Against The Clock method: each member takes their laptop and we start counting 10 minutes. Everyone creates something and then we play those to each other. We’ve gotten great ideas from those. The Hearing has a song called Weltschmerz, which started from one of our Against The Clock sessions. The idea felt so good that I also wanted to use it for my solo.
TUOMAS: What program do you use when making music?
RINGA: I use Logic. I usually start by creating some kind of a beat from samples. Lately, I’ve also played a lot of guitar. I’m not a phenomenal guitarist so I have to do many takes to get it right. But that means that I need to work on it for a long time, which again helps in developing new ideas. Everything comes to life piece by piece. When I have structure in place, I start creating the vocals and vocal harmonies. I sang in a choir when I was young, I guess the harmonies come from there.
TUOMAS: If someone wants to become Ringa Manner, what would you suggest?
RINGA: Ha! Here’s my recipe: wander around and out of mere luck be in the right place at the right time. Forget about some of your responsibilities, be cool-headed and don’t worry if you don’t necessarily know how you can pay next month’s rent. Somehow it will be figured out.
More seriously, I started playing piano when I was six, and since the third grade I started attending music class at school. I was not the best musician, but I really liked playing with other people. I sang in a choir and attended music-oriented high school. It was the first day of the last year of high school in 2006 when Ninni Luhtasaari asked if we should form a band. We did and formed Pintandwefall.
This 4-women powerhouse aka Pintandwefall has played a significant part of my musical growth. The whole starting point of the band was to choose instruments which we had not played before. Learning new instruments and learning about being in a band was hard, but it was also rewarding and super nice. I could hang with friends and play gigs.
It was in Pintandwefall that I learned to overcome my prejudice of “not being able to play because no one hasn’t taught me”. There’s no such thing! Just grab an instrument and see where it takes you. When playing live, it’s not the end of the world if you make a mistake.
