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KICK ASS VOICE COACH

I’ve known Karin Gemfors, my kick ass voice coach, for many years. I was her student way back when she was studying to be a music teacher. At her seminars, I’d act as one of her pupils and sing, while three teachers studied her every move. Those were her exams! I was kinda nervous, but it was fun as her teachers just couldn’t resist commenting, so I actually ended up with four teachers on those sessions. Not bad, right?
Karin is now a legit teacher and helps me when I have a voice problem, or when my voice just isn’t cutting it. She’s got a million tricks! About a year ago my darling Åsa, who’s always there for me, had to assist and press down on my rib cage as I lay on the floor. Karin told me to sing while she held her hands on my throat to “see how I was using it,” she said.
Just the other day I had issues with the vocals for “Dear Louise”. It’s a rather calm song. Give me rock and some loud vocals and I’m in my groove, you know? That’s where I feel good but when the vocals get softer… that just doesn’t come naturally to me. When I sang my best softest tones for “Dear Louise” she got this really worried look on her face. I was like, damn this is gonna be tough. But… she pulled this exercise band out, like the ones at the gym, and said: “Stand up, put it under your foot and grab the handles.” Yeah, I got to stand up that time! She told me to pull upwards while I sang the lyrics, and release after my inhalation, and repeat… man, that shouldn’t have surprised me though. I asked her how the h… she came up with that? She said I didn’t have enough tension in my rib cage… and the rubber band would help me achieve that. Did it work? Of course! Just one of Karin’s many tricks. So, now a black Casall Exetube always hangs on my mic stand in the studio.
I’ve learnt so much from Karin. And despite being kick ass with vocals and music, her real passion is theater. You can watch her perform every summer on stage in Örebro. This year she’s playing an evil step-mom and she don’t think it’ll be easy to be ingeniously evil… but I already know it. She’s gonna rule! She probably has evil step-mom tricks too, you know.
/Gus
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