~ News ~
August, 2008:
Some small fixes in the text on Site show page.
I am currently working on a huge rebuild of Rolf Martinsson's website. The new site will have a completely new look and lots of the content will be re-organized. The new site is planned to be finished during early autumn, 2008. Rolf Martinsson's website is located at rolfmartinsson.com.
July, 2008:
A new photo gallery is connected to this site. You will find it on Kartis' Gallery. Enjoy!
Dame Wiggens site
The rock band Dame Wiggens has released the official site in February 2008. Check it out at http://www.damewiggens.com.
Galvanic Spa
Contact me to make an appointment for a demonstration of the Galvanic Spa. Galvanic Spa is a revolutionary instrument to improve your skin on face and body.
All demonstrations and Business Opportunity Meetings are free for new visitors. Visiting distributors 100SEK.
Singing lessons
If you need a singing teacher or a vocal coach, you are welcome to contact me for an appointment.
~ Contact Kartis Shone ~
~ Outer Links ~
For details about these links go to the Nu Skin Enterprises link to the left.
~ More about me ~
I was born in Hästveda in the early sixties. In that time Hästveda was the most cosy and neat place a child could be raised in. It is a small village in northern Skåne, most southern county of Sweden, tucked in between forests, lakes and hills. With the closeness to nature I had a great childhood most of the time. I am the youngest of four siblings. My sister Cilla is an artist with textiles, my brother Per-Ole was a journalist at first but is now a priest, my oldest brother Bosse is a car technician, currently working as some kind of consult for European companies and installing machines for them.
All of us four kids were into music. Bosse is 13 years older than me and played in a dance band when he was young. He quit doing that and started messing with cars instead. I played in a small orchestra with Per-Ole and Cilla, where Per-Ole played the bass, Cilla played the guitar and sang and I played the electric organ. I was also the one who had to pick out all the notes and chords in the songs we wanted to (or had to) play. Our father rehearsed with us as long as he considered himself able to. He actually didn't know anything about music, but had a feeling for what he wanted it to sound like. After a few years playing together, he hired different music people to help us with the rehearsing. After all, we were kids and didn't know much about technique and theory in music, so we needed some help, I guess.
I took piano lessons from the age of 6. I dreamed of becoming a concerto pianist, and applied for the Academy of Music when I was on my last year of high school (in Swedish: gymnasium). Most people, except my parents, believed I would not be admitted since I didn't have any previous teaching in music theory and only knew how to play the piano. However, I was admitted to the Music Teachers Department with good scores. I had learned a lot from just playing the piano every day, and from playing together with my sister and brother.
I moved to Malmö when I was nineteen to start my college education at the Academy of Music. Moving from a small village to a big city is a huge change of life. But for me it was a double feeling. I had longed for so long to be old enough to manage on my own and move out, so I loved living in my own apartment. However I missed the forests and the calm, the birds singing, the garden with flowers and berries, the dark nights and the fresh air. Instead it was close to everything - restaurants, movie theatres, concerts, friends, parties - I never needed to travel several miles to go anywhere.
Studying music at the Academy was hard, with barely any free time if one wanted to succeed well in all the subjects. I realized that I wasn't going to be a concert pianist, but was happy with that anyway. My main interest in music changed to singing. As a child I didn't get many occasions to sing, except in different choirs. Now, I had a singing teacher who supported me into choosing singing as the main subject. I am still happy for all her efforts.
I guess I was a somewhat good student, at least I got good grades. So when I was finished after four years at the Music Academy I got a job as a Music Teacher. I didn't like it much from the start. I wanted to be a singer. My first idea was to become an opera singer. To accomplish that I had to do four more years at the Academy, a few more years at the Opera Academy, and then - if I was extremely lucky and well prepared - I would get a job in some opera choir with a very low wage for lots of hard work. I am a mezzo, the most common voice all times, and therefore the competition is extreme. Already during applying for the soloist education at the Academy of Music I realized all this and I guess I didn't put much effort into it. I wasn't admitted.
Instead I continued as a music teacher. I also joined a double quartet called Åtta Glas (Eight Glasses). Instead of singing opera music I was now singing jazz and entertainment music. It was wonderful! We had lots of success during our six years together. We recorded one LP, did lots of radio and TV shows, and of course tons of concerts. Unfortunately we split up in January 1991.
I left teaching in graduate school to work full time as a freelance in 1988. I worked with different theatre companies, mostly as a musician and actor, but also as an interpret for singers at theatres and single shows. Sometimes I got jobs as a background singer for different artists. In 1991 I entered the Sound Production education at the Academy of Music. My interest for technique had always been there even if I didn't know much, and now I wanted to learn more. When I looked for jobs as a sound technician I was experiencing the old-fashioned idea that only men are good with messing with sounds in a studio. I was rejected from all jobs I applied for, some of them with the explanation that I was a woman. Simultaneously I had a job offer from the Academy to work as a singing teacher there. Instead of fighting for a job in the sound branch I took the better paid job as a singing teacher. Good enough.
One year later, in 1994, I got a part time singing teacher job at the Academy of Theatre in Malmö. This was a very exciting but hard work. Along with the part time job at the Academy of Music I now worked full time as a singing teacher, and beside that I also worked almost full time as a musician at nights and weekends. I worked like that for a few years until I hit the wall. The wall was "The Burn Out Wall". I found myself in a zombie-like state for about half a year. It seemed like everything around me fell apart. I didn't have the energy to go outside anymore nor even talk in the phone. I was sick from work for about 6 months. I just couldn't accept the fact that I was sick anymore so I started working again. For a few years I worked only part time to not overdo it again. I was still quite exhausted. I moved out from my fiancée and fell in love again. Richard was living in Fresno, California, the other side of the earth from Sweden. We met in an Internet game called Ever Quest. Silly, but true.
I lived in a friend's apartment. I was able to live there for two years until she returned from New York. Richard came to Sweden eight months after I moved, to live with me. Because of me not working much anymore, and Richard not having any job at all, it was extremely difficult to pay bills and have food on the table. I started working full time again in the summer of 2001 at the Academy of Music. By that time we had learned how to live on barely anything. In 2004 I started my own business with the mission to build up a fortune to prevent me from ever having debts and bad credit again. I still work full time at the Academy of Music in Malmö, 50% as a singing teacher and 50% at the office.
My parents moved out from my childhood house in Hästveda in August 2000. The few times I have come through the village since then, I didn't get the urge to move back there. It sure is beautiful, but like most small towns it is extremely dead and boring. Times change.
Richard and I still live in Malmö. It is a great city to live in, but I miss the forests and the scent of nature. Since 1993 I work at the school where I started as a student in 1980. I teach singing and computers and also work at the office at the Academy of Music. I design web pages for composers or other music/art related organisations. Also, I am building up my network company with Nu Skin Enterprises as a base. Still a workaholic...
I was never blessed with children, and I am still hoping happiness will shine on me in that matter, even though I am getting older. I enjoy the company of my 12 year old cat, Sashi. She is adorable, fat and clumsy, but nobody would ever imagine that she is an old lady. She still jumps up on the 2 metres high closet to sleep in her "house" that sits on top of the closet. Her job is to keep me company, and she actually follows me wherever I walk at home. (She might get some food!)