Marina Mortensson is new to our music school this year and she is giving interesting voice lessons to our students. She was born in a small town of 10 houses in southern Sweden and has been living in Sweden ever since. She came to Slovenia from Sweden in 2013 for three months to improve her Slovene to be able to talk to her Slovenian grandparents, who still live in Sweden.. But she likes it here so much not being stressed by busy Stockolm life and having the opportunity to do her own music that she is staying. For now.
Where did you grow up, what was your childhood like? Did you listen to a lot of music, play music at home…?
In our very very small village everyone knew everyone.My friends and I started to play music because that was the only thing that we could do. My parents always liked music and dancing. They never played instruments themselves, but they have always been very supportive. It was my sister and I doing the music in our family. The first instrument that she started to play was violin and I wanted to play it as well, but I was three so it didn’t sound very good. After a couple of weeks my mother took it away from me. Then my sister went to the choir but I was too small then, but I always wanted to do what she did, so I tried it too. She is six years older and I looked up to her, I still do. When we grew up a bit more and I was 10 and she was 16 they wanted to give my sister a place to play with her band. My parents had a big restaurant in this village where we lived so they renovated one of the buildings we lived in and they made a stage and a bar – it was quite basic at that time but then it became quite a famous jazz club which they ran for about 12 years. So my sister and I started to play in that jazz club and I had a band. I was 11 at that time and it was then that I started to play in public, starting by playing in the passes of my sister’s band, on my guitar and singing and later with my own band. There were famous jazz musicians and singers coming from all over Sweden, we met a lot of musicians, played with them and it was a very very good experience.
It’s very hard to break into the music/jazz scene these days. Even harder to get an album out, or two in your case. How did this come around?
It is a very interesting and nice story because I was only 17 when I met the musicians that I worked on both of my albums and I was still in high school at that time. My uncle was living in Stockholm and he had a friend who was and still is one of Sweden’s most famous and best jazz guitar players: Max Schultz, so my uncle gave him one of my demos with one song recorded and said: Just listen to it and let me know what you think! And then he called and asked me if I wanted to come to Stockholm to make a concert, I didn’t even know who the famous guitar player was, I was still so young and I said, uh, ok, I’ll come next week. I made this concert with this guitar player and one of Sweden’s most famous bass players as well who then became my producer on the album. It was the way to making an album because the bass player asked me after a few concerts if I had any plans of making an album. After two years I moved to Stockholm to work with them. I recorded the album in 2006 and it was released 2009. It was three years of hard work to put it out. No one wanted to release it, so we decided to release it ourselves and then I got signed with a label in Japan and both of my albums are released through that label in Japan. My cd is still selling really well there, it is quite amazing since I’ve never been there and never played there, they still like my music more in Japan than in Sweden. The second album was really a tribute to Elvis Presley titled My Tribute To The King.
How did you find your voice? Did you have like an epiphany and said, yes, this is what I want to do?
I think I started to sing like all the other kids in front of the mirror, Aretha Franklin, Billy Holiday, they were the ones I wanted to copy. Ella Fitzgerald was my soul queen at 16 years of age. But the first time that I felt I was really good and said I want to do this was when I was 15 or 16 and I was in a Swedish competition called Musik Direkt for kids from 13 to 19 years of age. I was 15 and it was a very big thing for me. It was me on my guitar, a piano player and a bass player. I played my songs and we won. When we won it was a very very big thing and we made a tour through Sweden and Belgium. To win the competition among hundreds and hundreds of kids I really felt that they believed in me. That was that time that I was proud of myself and really decided that is what I wanted to do.
Would you consider applying to the Idol talent competition now if you were a 15-year old?
Yes, I maybe would, because I have many friends who have been in Idol and who did very well there and said this is really the best experience and they really had a good time. It is also good for making a name for yourself. I am sure it is really hard work and you have to be strong and really know what you are doing before going into it, otherwise it can be like a punch in the face. If I had to choose a song that I would sing it would be Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy.
How can a good teacher help a singer to flourish?
When I look back on my teachers I remember the really close relationships that we had, I could cry with them, tell them everything and I really trusted them. I’m not saying he should be like a therapist but you should feel really safe with your teacher. For some people it’s quite a big thing for them to open yourself and to sing and sometimes when you sing it opens quite a lot of feelings as well. I want them to feel that they can trust me and they can show their feelings and make fun of themselves because during the warmups you can look weird and crazy. If you don’t feel relaxed with your teacher, you don’t want to do that. It is easier to explore yourself through your singing if you feel safe. My singing teachers they were really like my best friends. And they still are, which is really nice. With my singing teacher it’s been like: How are you feeling today, are you on your period? – That is important, because that affects your voice that day. Even if you break up with your boyfriend, it affects the singing so much. Many of my singing lessons with my teachers were just talking and when we stopped I sang a totally different song. You could feel the lyrics more. Many times during my singing lessons I also cried in the middle of the song.
Which popular singers do you like?
Beyonce, of course Adele, I like them all, I like a lot of music. I like even Miley Cyrus, I can’t help it. I’ve got some opinions about the way their music videos look like but I really like their music. And it’s good, because I really like to play that kind of music with my students. Some of them even propose some songs, for example “Let it Go” from the film Frozen… I didn’t know it but then I listened to it and really liked it. I learn a lot from my students.
What would the most important advice to your students be?
Practicing, that is always important. And never forget to have fun in music; that is important as well. Try to find a balance between practicing but still having fun. It never happened to me but I have friends who have practiced too much and they don’t find the joy in music anymore but they are still amazing musicians. As long as you’re having fun and as long as you enjoy singing or playing an instrument you will want to practice.
