About me

Singing…

Singing is my main instrument. My parents tell me that I started singing before I could talk. (My husband, Jakob, says that he can’t stop thinking about Abba when he reads that 🙂  ).

When I was an infant, they noticed that whenever the radio was on, I made noises that they later realized was my first attempts to singing… I have kept on singing since then – to whatever I listen to. So, practice driven by inspiration. That has turned out to be a red thread throughout most things I do.

At first it was mostly Carola, Melodifestivalen and what was on the radio. So, I actually still have somewhat of a secret (until now that you read it) desire to be part of it one day. I continued with my parents records, I remember Whitney Houston, Lionel Richie, and musicals like Chess, Cats, eventually Phantom of the Opera.

When I was 10 years old, we moved from Växjö to north of Stockholm. I made a new friend, Naomi, and we spent hours and hours playing that we made our own radio shows, and singing to Roxette, Madonna, U2.

In early teens, I started singing in a band, Christmas choirs, and musicals that were arranged by the school. Every now and then I think back of the encouragement I had from my teachers, Anders and Mats, and also from a couple of my classmates. I hope to be able to thank them one day. (And the contrary, to a few that were hellish to me. Not particularly regarding my music, but to me in general, at the time.)

Quite late, around age 16, I took some singing lessons. But I could only find teachers for classic training, and I rather wanted to develop more into rock/soul/RnB so it was only for a short period. So, I went back to singing to my favourite vocalists again and so it has continued. It is not hard to find inspiration these days, just mentioning a few of the known names here… Rihanna, P!nk, Sarah McLachlan, Chris Cornell, Helen Sjöholm, Amy Winehouse, Ella Fitzgerald, Jessie J, Laney Staley, Adele, Molly Hammar, to name a few…

Piano…

When I was 6 years old, I started taking piano lessons. I remember one thing very clearly:
after several years, my parents and the teacher realized that I couldn’t read the notes. For me, the reason was very simple: I just didn’t need them – it was easy for me to listen to my teacher playing a new song and then play it by heart. So, looking back at it now, it is all quite amusing, but at the time I felt very awkward due to that they seemed disappointed.

Going further into classics, I eventually had some help of reading notes – when it became hard to remember what I had heard 😀

I kept on with lessons until I was 12 years old. By that time I wanted to play songs that I liked listening to, but there was no room for that in the lessons so I quit.

Today, I like playing even though I don’t play that often. I sometimes use it when writing.  

Guitar…

When I was 15 years old, I had to quit playing basketball due to a knee injury. Luckily, it gave me 5 days/week of extra spare time and I was inspired to start playing the guitar. I hate to admit that the first songs I played were from Bryan Adams… but it was quite rewarding because after two weeks of practicing frenetically all waking hours to learn barré chords, I could play all his songs 🙂

Teenage mood support eventually came from The Cure, and their early punk records drove me to “Jump someone else’s train” – i e practice rhythm as ever before.

At the school’s lucia choir, I met Sophie. We did some fun stuff together, for example we participated in Musik Direkt with a couple of friends, and I was part of an around-the-town outdoor tour that Sophie arranged. Around this time, BritPop era arose and swept me along, musically, and maybe most of all: message and attitude. Blur 🙂

Later, I joined my first real band called Mason, as bassist. Real meaning not arranged by school, or temporary project. This period has had a lot of persisting impact on me, both musically and socially. I was overflowed by new rock influences, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc  which inspired me to develop my electric guitar playing – I still love playing riff’s… Also, on the social aspect, this was the first time I felt such a strong sense of belonging with a group of people. I remember with great warmth that we used to call our group of friends “Glada familjen” (Happy family). These people still have a special place in my heart.

I found my first guitar teacher, Anders Färdal, he was great – we improvised every lesson, I showed him what I was into listening to and playing, and he gave me advice and tech tricks to apply to that. That way I really practiced,  I wouldn’t have done that otherwise…

Today, I still play by ear and seldom use notes (even though most of my fellow musicians seem to think that I do 🙂   ). With one exception: if I’m the one starting to play an intro, I note the first chord of that since I don’t remember absolute pitch.

Writing songs…

Around early teens, I started writing my own songs, and have kept on every now and then since then. I see that as large piece of what is defining me. I kind of wonder what I would have been like without writing music, and music in general in my life, I can’t really see that…

The process of writing often starts with a melody/chord/(dis)harmony that I hear from somewhere, some tune pops up in my head, or I just happen to play (sometimes by mistake) and like. I collect small pieces like these for a later stage.

Sometimes when I listen to the radio I could think to myself ”ah, pity, I wish the song would have continued like this rather than like that” so I’ve realized that obviously there is some subconscious processing going on. So, when I’m in the mood of ”getting into work” to continue with a small piece, I pretend that I listen to it on the radio, to hear the continuation 🙂  I try to just listen to that and continue with it  – it is important to me to have an open mind and not be steered by music theory or what it “should” sound like.

When I’m close to finalizing, the process of doubt and self loathing usually starts. So I try to ignore that and just finalize anyway, and then leave it. After some time, I have enough perspective to pick up the song and listen to it and be reasonable.

It is the same as with a painting, I can look at my half-finished painting and just see a lot of strokes here and there and have a hard time liking it. But when the painting is finished I am more objective because the actual picture takes over.

Working with music…

At 18 years of age, I had to make some fundamental choices regarding education and what to work with. I wanted a lot of music in my life, but I wasn’t sure in what way and under what conditions. After a lot of thinking, I chose to keep it as my favourite hobby. The reason being that I wanted to keep my freedom and independence to do exactly what I want with music. To keep driving fueled by inspiration, not having to rely on that as my income. No compromises on what music to write, how to look or what to sing or play, just let it be the result of what I personally want to do. After all, that was the overall pattern of my choices up to then.

The obvious draw-back is of course that I spend less time on music in total, and I have to be more active to meet other musicians/network within the music scene.

I have to admit that I sometimes play with the thought “why oh why didn’t I take the blue pill?”, but most of the times I am convinced that I did what was right for me.