Singer, Arranger, Composer, Organization Rep, Vocal Ensemble Teacher, Festival Manager

Musician/Artist

Hi! Welcome to my profile!
I am still figuring out where to begin... and what to publish here about myself. ;-)

One thing I do know, though, is that I would like to encourage you to write questions to The Real Group in the Forum!
We are planning to spend many hours there.

The Real Group has always communicated a lot with people thru email and replied to all sorts of questions. Quite often I have been thinking "what if more than one person could read this email that I am writing".

I am also thinking about the Site Friendship function. Now I would say that I am a very friendly type of guy, and I have a personal relation to quite a lot of people who might be interested in joining The Real Community.

Of course I will accept Friend Requests from all of you that I already know!

To those of you who I don't know yet, however, I would like to say that I am looking forward to get to know you through the Forums!

- so please don't take it personally if I would reject your Friend Request!

My dad and my uncle play guitar and I wanted to be like them. My grandfather played violin... and my mother wanted me to be more like him, I guess! ;-) So I first went to a violin teacher, and later when I was 13 and old enough to make my own decisions, I picked up the guitar. My dad taught me the standard blues chord changes, and since then I have more or less taught myself how to play.

When I was 20, I had a girl-friend who said to me that I would waste my life if I became a lawyer or doctor. So I sent an application to the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm.

I spent five years there, and made very rapid progress, I would say, simply because I had found what I really wanted to do.

Those years changed my life, I learned many things that you must go to a school to learn. When I graduated from the Academy in 1989, The Real Group had already established ourselves professionally.

Then I became a professional a cappella singer. A most unusual job.
And I have learned many things that you cannot learn in any school.

I listened to Beatles a lot when I was a kid. I still think their ensemble singing is great. Simple and effective.

Then I went to Adolf Fredrik's Music Classes in high school. That school is all about choir singing.

I heard Swingle Singers live, in 1982. They had a very talented bass singer named Simon Grant, who sang walking bass lines, quite jazzy & very cool. First time I thought a cappella singing could be Hip.

Then I saw a video with Bobby McFerrin in concert - that was a major door opener for me.

Sing, compose, arrange and teach.
Play guitar in a trio that has 3-4 local gigs per year.

I definitely will have made at least one CD where I play guitar and sing solo!

My major in college was composition/arranging.
Among other things that I have done, but rarely have time for, for various reasons, is to write orchestral scores.

I also have done a bit of Csound programming.
Maybe some day I'll do a record with Really weird electronic music. ;-)