It is early morning in Oslo. I have a feeling this might just be a good day while stretching my 172 centimeters like a cat, postponing the shower for as long as I can. I go through my dream and wonder why I was busy saving young birds all night. Then I start thinking about today while my eyes gradually tear loose from sleep. I remind myself life is here and now, not yesterday or tomorrow, and decide to “experience my own life” – not just “go through it”. Today will never return, it comes exclusive and outstanding. A few hours of today I get to decide, luckily the rest is not entirely under my control.

After showering through all the warm water on the tank, having breakfast, swallowing some medication, and going through my morning ritual in the bathroom I am ready to go to the hospital for a regular check-up and some x-rays. The time is 7:30 when I go out the door. By the tram-stop I am having a “Sliding Doors”-experience: I just miss the tram I was aiming for, and have to wait for the next. So, I wonder how much of today’s contents would have changed if I had caught the first one.

The hospital has well-known corridors. Both the young girl with the black finger-nails at the reception and the radiologist with the penetrating eyes (x-ray-vision?) are nodding at me in recognition – one of the nice side-effects of having a cronic desease that repeatedly takes me back to the same place. I wait for a while, undress, put on a blue robe, and then I get hooked up to the machinery and some tubes, I answer routine questions, and then I get headphones so I can listen to the radio while being scanned.

Returning from the hospital I drop by my hairdresser to hand her 3 CDs I put together, mixes of pophits and Eurovision-songs. I do this for charitable reasons, imagine having to listen to the same music over and over again day out and day in… That is just cruel… My hairdresser pops the first CD in the player and thanks me by giving me a quick “makeover”. By a stroke of magic a “bad hair day” is transformed into a “good hair day”. Some good old-fashioned barter is underrated!

I almost forget posting my letter to two of my niese. I have written a few words enclosed with autographed photos – six of their friends want a photo of “the aunt who is a popstar” – and surely I have to fix this for my little darling ambassadors. Additionally, it is always nice to get a letter in the snailmail – I cannot remember the last time this happened. Nostalgia…

(Photos: Johs Bøe)

A great friend and myself have created a “writing-club” together. We meet up at a café and sit there side by side working on our separate projects – she is writing a novel, I am writing on my dissertation. First a coffee and a chat, then working industriously until lunchtime, and then onwards for as long as we can (sometimes wrapping it up with a pint…).

When I walk through the gate to my backyard I meet the neighbours who are out walking their little weird dog. I smile to myself: It is this little furry monster that “pipes along” every time I rehearse singing. Poor thing, he must be in such torture. I also suspect this might be the couple that entertain the whole neighbourhood having loud sex 24-7.

I eat chicken-casserole and punch away at my Mac. I have to send some mails about booking, concert-dates, and I have to book some flights (Northern Norway and Italy) before the airfares go insane. And of course, there are bills to pay… I am taking the daily stroll through Facebook, getting some updates on TV, and chatting with my family on the phone. I get an idea for some lyrics for a new song I am working on, and hurry to the piano to try out the words with the melody, but the time is moving rapidly towards bedtime and it is getting too late to be noisy in the building.

Time for my evening contemplation. I was supposed to meet a guy from the music business today, but cancelled when I decided to work with my friend. It was probably not “important” after all – so my gut feeling tells me anyway. There will be other chances. The film “Sliding Doors” crosses my mind again, and I feel perfectly at ease knowing the good things will appear on my path sooner or later. Due to many small decisions and strange coincidences these good things may just have to take a detour first…

My pianist/keyboardist Hilmar Kristoffersen and myself have worked with our duo-concept for several years (doing events), but never given a full concert as a duo – until this spring when we gave a concert at Myren Gård in Kristiansand (southern Norway).

I am using this concert teaser (press info) written by concert arranger Monica Brenna to say a few words about our duo (vocals & keys). Monica Brenna makes a tremendous effort for the music community in southern Norway by running this concert venue, but also by bringing music people together, cross-distributing contacts, and by daring to take risks in a music world where no one takes risks anymore!

(Photo: Tine Frich Møller)

As a heading Monica came up with this: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FAIRYTALE / Concert with ELIN SYNNØVE BRÅTHEN & HILMAR KRISTOFFERSEN. Based on her hearing the duo earlier she continues in the same spirit as if writing a review:

ELIN SYNNØVE BRÅTHEN is one of the strongest musician ladies in Norway today. Elin Synnøve writes songs with substance that moves within the genre pop/jazz mixed with Celtic elements. The compositions are utterly beautiful, melodious and strong, which make them perfect for the small concert venues where the artist is close to the audience – and where the artist cannot rely on anything but her own competence, presence and great songs. These are songs that are as solid in a stripped-down arrangement as with a full band and orchestra. Elin Synnøve is technically very concinving and she conveys the songs with a storyteller’s abilities and a vocal sound as beautiful and pure as water – leaving the listener moved to the bone. She combines technical skills with heart and soul, making her expression personal and real. Her range spans from the deep valleys to the highest highs with natural ease and eleganse. Elin Synnøve Bråthen is signed with CD-label Curling Legs here in Norway – synonymous with exceptional musical quality. She has received fantastic reviews for her two albums both in Norway and abroad. In the voice of Elin Synnøve melodious pop-songs becomes something exciting and jazz-influenced songs becomes more accessible – all in all this is mixed and given an ethnic flavour turning it into something quite unique and exquisite.

(Hilmar Kristoffersen and ESC-winner Alexander Rybak)

Elin Synnøve has joined forces with her Eliksir-pianist HILMAR KRISTOFFERSEN who is arranger, composer and performing musician. He has written music for television and films and has travelled around Europe with Alexander Rybak (the ESC-winner of 2009). Hilmar Kristoffersen has a strong signature in his lyrical touch and versatile musical style. He is also rather innovative when it comes to filtering and producing his own sounds on the different keyboards and vintage syntesizers. The duo presents a mix of Elin Synnøve Bråthen’s songs and a handful of neatly rearranged cover-songs, timeless classics that are given a creative yet respectful makeover in the hands of Elin Synnøve and Hilmar.

In my tiny apartment in the centre of Oslo there is a piano – judging by the space this is against all odds. The piano is slightly out of tune, but it is my dear companion when writing songs. The label manager has asked me to write about 30 new songs for the next album recording. 10 of them are already shipped off for evaluation. The next 4-5 are in the making; I am working on them in-between blogging and working on my PhD, singing rehearsals, and a minimum of housework…

How do one write songs? There is no waterproof ritual here. It is a myth that writing songs only is possible in inspired moments. A wise person (“wiseass”) said that the best inspiration one can get is a deadline. Sure enough, inspiration is not something you can buy or take for granted. Sometimes you have to get into the work routine of composing even when you are not bursting with inspiration. Great ideas can spring out of hours of dreary jamming alone by the piano. Other times I wake up in the middle of the night with brilliant ideas and have to run to the piano to note them down or tape them on my voice recorder. Experience shows that such “bright night ideas” have a tendency to disappear by the break of dawn.

The songs I am working on now are examples of both processes. I have played around with some song-titles: “Disenchanted”, “You Can’t Bring Me Down” and “Your Ghost Becomes A Person”. The tunes are usually finished long before the lyrics. When writing the tune I trust the first pure idea; if I work too much on the same melody-phrases and keep changing them forth and back the original idea is lost. The more filterless I write the easier the creativity flows.

(Photo: Morten Brimi / Above photo: Astrid Lunke)

Writing lyrics is a more demanding work. I collect information and images for the lyrics from my dreams. Most of my songs are rooted in some dream I had some night. Dreams are both personal and fairytale-like – sometimes surreal – so it is not possible to copy+paste directly from my dream-journal. The dream images must be translated into pop-lyrics that are shaped to fit the melody and formed to sound good when singing them. Working this out takes time.

Tonight I am going to bed with the new melodies on my mind; they are dancing their own little dance inside my head and encouraging my dreams to post some suitable images that can be transformed into lyrics tomorrow or the day after.