Theese last weeks have been completely filled of practicing and mixing songs.
I have mixed the songs that Janne Schaffer played on and it took some weeks for me to be pleased with the mix. Now I will send it to Björn Bergdahl for mastring. (shortly explanation: put the levels on the song so you can play it on a stereo).
I also spent a lot of time to practice and choose songs for my performance at Berns. Besides me and the piano there will be a cellist playing so I will do an arrangement for her. I might have some other musicians, but it´s not set yet.
There will also be a secret guestartist. 🙂
Monday to Friday I was in Växjö without any music at all, I was going mad. Now when I´m back I have to play more than ever to make up for lost time….
I have a book where I note how much I practise. I have predetermined how much I should practice every week. Believe it or not but I do have weeks off too. 🙂
Tomorrow is another week and I will focus on celloarrangements, practicing my songs and some musicpieces for a funeral on Friday.
Well, time to leave for now but I´ll be back here soon to tell you the latest…..

Yesterday Janne Schaffer was here to record guitar on two of my songs. He has a busy schedule but he came here between his touring. His reverb on the amplifier was broken so he had to play without, his amplifier is huge by the way. I wanted the sound to be as much ”Janne” as possible so I put a mic in front of the amplifier instead of making a clean sound and then put on effects.
After soundcheck and put levels right we started to record. He played the first song twice. I sat and enjoyed it. I only had one pair of  headphones that I gave him so I couldn´t here the song only his guitar. I could here he put his soul in it. Afterwards he look at me as if he had given me his heart on a silverplate. That is what it feels like for a real musician to play…..
He recorded the other song and I asked him to play as fragile as he could. The song is about people that needs a lot of attention and comfirmation. He played again with his soul and then he looked at me with a shy glance as though he´d ask ”Was this good enough?”.
I think it this will be a perfect match for my songs. Now I have to take the songs a step further. I´m just going to cut it and mix it while enjoying his recording…..

There has been some intense days. I played the piano in a big church Yesterday and we had a quick rehearsal the day before; me, the guitarist and the Bassist. The church was full of people and it was really good acoustics.
I love to perform in churches.
Now I´m thinking about my performance at Berns. I will have a concert there in the Autumn but I want to make plans for it early, so I´m thinking about musicians and songs. I might right some new stuff too during the Summer.

I played at a funeral some days ago. The funeral was very special cause it was performed in the catolic way.  The Priest had some kind of stone in a lantern and the stone released smoke.
The smoke smelled really good and he walked around with it making a big cloud of smoke in the room, like incense. He also spoke a little different than the protestants do.
After the ritual we walked outside and six guys lifted the coffin to the grave and then turned around and bowed to the priest.
It was a very good ritual, I´m glad to have taken part in such a respectful funeral.

I had a meeting with my artist coach Micke Nystedt yesterday. It was about 8 month since we had our last meeting. I told him after the last meeting that I had some ideas that I wanted to try out before seeing him again. One of those ideas was to go to the audition to ”Talent 2012”. The thing was that there is no ”Talent 2012”, they put it down to create other entertainment programs. So my plan was crached. During the Autumn my music career was quite on hold. But now in the spring something happened that broke the ice, I had some performances, a music video is coming up and some secret projects, hihi.
On Tuesday I will play classical music at a funeral. It was quite long since I sang classical songs so I have practiced a lot on my classical voice. Mostly I sing in the popgenre. This weekend I try to have a weekend without practicing at all, just because I want to see what else I can do. It is really difficult. When I visit people I never see the difference in their houses (if they even changed colours on the walls). The only thing I see is if they have any instruments at home. I call myself a real music nerd! But I am proud to be one!

I should have written the day after my performance but the thing is that I got a bad cold and it was worse the day after….
On Tuesday I had the performance at the Opera House in Stockholm. Some hours before going there I was at home feeling quite sick. I got a bad cold and wondered if I would be able to perform at all. I had, fever, cough and runny nose…. But – stubborn as I am – I decided to go through with it. I got there at six for a soundcheck. As soon as I saw the nice wiew of the Sea outside the window and the lovely piano, my cold felt like gone with the wind for awhile. The Sound Engineer did a good job putting up a mic, mixertable and set the sound. The piano I was playing at was really lovely, especially with that wiew! After the sound was set I sat and waited awhile and soon I heard the sound of a voice from the room next to mine. It was the voice of the swedish singer Lisa Nilsson (Himlen runt hörnet). She did her soundcheck before her performance that would take place there in a couple uf hours.
At seven the politicians came and I started to play. I played covers and my own material, mostly calm songs. The politicians were mingeling arond and talking. At eight I had a brake and then I started again after Lisa Nilsson was done with her performance at eleven. I continued playing covers and my own material. At the end I felt the cold and played some instumental piano solos to save my voice. I was supposed to play til twelwe but since the politicians came back from the Lisa Nilsson gig a little bit later I continued my performance later, til halv past twelwe. It was quite long performance and I´m amazed what the body can do. Even though I was really ill before I started to play, it was like my body ”put itself togheter” and thought ”I can do this”. I don´t think anyone could here I got a cold.
The day after I was a little bit worse but today it´s Saturday and I´m almost well now.
Yesterday they called me from Fonus Funeral Company and told me one of their employees was really impressed with my insert this Friday when I played at a funeral. She told me they had about 400 funerals a week so it was really remarcable that he had recommended me. I was of course really happy to hear that. Tonight I´ll relax and make sure to be completely well so that I can sing again… 🙂

Tonight I´m playing the piano and singing for politicians at the Opera House in Stockholm.
I will play the whole nigtht from seven til eight and then from ten til twelwe. The thing is that I´ve got a cold so I have to take it easy and rest a while before the great Enterteinment. I think it will go neverless great anyway, cause that´s what I decided. I will bring a lot of songs: covers, my own material, and instrumental pianosongs.
My new businesscards just arrived so I can hand them out tonight.
Well, now I will go sleep for two hours and then have some tea before going to the soundcheck.

Right now is a week off from work and activities. That gives me even more time for the music. I have some musical assignments that I have to preper. Tomorrow I will play on a funeral. I will play Sicillienne by Maria Theresia on flute and sing a ”Make me smile” by Steve Harley, and some other flutemusic. On Tuesday I will perform for politicians, I will have about three hours to sing and play so I preper a lot for it this week. I also want my voice to be in a good shape for performances so I practise a lot to a ”warm up your voice” cd.
Besides that I´m very into filmmusic right now. I wrote an instrumental works this morning and I sang the part of the strings out loud together with my piano Accompaniment. I have always loved filmmusic so I will continue with the work tomorrow, with a clear head. Sometimes I have so many tones that I have to wait until I´m more ”empty as a blank paper” again.

I am very frustrated right now. My Cubase doesn´t work.  Cubase is the music program where I record all my songs. I have a job that I really need to do so I hope it will be fixed soon. I am not tecnical at all so I´m glad to have a tecnical brother. 🙂
I´ve got some new performances coming up. Some of theese jobs comes from a booking agency and some I got from contacts. They are not public, but for specially invited guests.
This Friday I had a nice meeting with Christoofer Lindberg, he works at Kotte Management. (They have artists like Eldkvarn, Micke Rickfors and tommy Nilsson) He takes care of artists, their jobs and performances and helps them to get things right and he also work with their image.
So since he was in Stockholm we met in town. We talked about the music business and what is happening right now in the music world. It´s so interesting to here him speak about his work. He seem to do a fantastic job with theese artists! That was a good meeting and we will see what happens next in the music world….
Soon I will go to sleep cause tomorrow is another day of practice. Good night you night owls! 🙂

One day you are happy – the other day your sad
one day a place you called your home – tomorrow is another home
one day you have a friend – the other day the friendship is no more
one day you are here – the other day you are gone.
Life goes through so many shades. It´s like our intire life consists of small different lifes.
That is what my new song is about.. I wrote it yesterday. Tomorrow there will be another song in another little shade of my life….