SoundGym Hero: Vitalii Mizhenin

It started somewhere around school, following that period when it turned out that "emotional music have quite an effect on you". An effect entirely unfamiliar to me until then, or at least, not to that degree. Music became a constant, I'd turn it on in the first minute of the morning and wouldn't let go until the last minute of the evening. And which was entirely predictable: sooner or later, this had to raise the question, how, exactly, is music made?

I had no idea whatsoever. Neither about how music works from the inside, I hadn't attended music school, hadn't played any instruments, nor about how it gets recorded. Although, as you've probably guessed, that didn't stop me from experimenting for even a second.

To those who witnessed those experiments, my sincere condolences.

The operation launched on both fronts simultaneously. Friends and older acquaintances with any musical background were subjected to relentless interrogation (not all of them held up). Every available piece of literature, tracked down and consumed. Not understood, but consumed.

I later came across the view that music theory belongs to those disciplines where direct transmission of knowledge from mentor to student yields incomparably greater results than self-study through books, however diligent. I'm inclined to agree. No such mentor materialised. Though perhaps I didn't look hard enough. Today I know incomparably more about music theory than I did then, but a sense of sufficient understanding still eludes me.

The recording side of things was much the same. And yet I recorded multi-layered compositions with total abandon, on an out-of-tune guitar, percussion fashioned from whatever was at hand, and a homemade single-voice synthesiser (which produced a sound that was nothing short of a buzzer, and that would have been a compliment), using the ping-pong method.

Some of those recordings survived. Listening to them today, I experience delight, astonishment, and a particular variety of vicarious embarrassment.

Lately, with some help from training on the platform, the ear, as it turns out, responds very well to being trained.

The work recorded before SG isn't on streaming platforms or anywhere else public. But if anyone's curious, ask, and I'll share a link to the cloud.

|Personal listening only. Distribution, public performance, and any other use are not permitted. The rights holder reserves the right to look the other way, but that doesn't mean the violations go unnoticed.

Of all the roles I've tried on along the way, today I single out two, bass player and mixing engineer. The curve, by all appearances, is still pointing upward. I haven't reached the ceiling of my abilities, at least not yet, and I intend to make full use of that fact.

Another tricky question. At first, I wanted to say something from Radiohead, The Cure, or Depeche Mode... but then I thought: even a ninety-minute film has a soundtrack of ten to fifteen songs, and here we're talking about an entire life.

Life is different in different decades. Different from year to year. And even if it isn't, the way we feel about it changes, so in our personal universe it's different anyway. Two days back-to-back can sound completely different. But why stop at days, a single moment can change everything, and demand a different song.

Today it's "Take Me Back to Piauí" by Juca Chaves. Though who knows, perhaps only because it was playing in a film I just watched.

I came to SG looking for ways to improve my sound engineering skills, to keep up the tradition of making each new project better than the last. I should admit, I've stayed longer than expected: I could see progress happening, and now I'm waiting until the level feels "sufficient", yes, I know, I know: a flawed strategy, which I condemn just as reliably as I practise it. I'll fix that. Someday.

But while the future takes shape, there's the present, and it isn't sitting idle. Contributing to other people's projects, collaborations with people from different corners of the world. 

So, making use of this platform, I'll address my fellow SG members directly: if your project needs a bass guitar part, or if your path as a sound engineer started much later than your path as a musician, and you have something to record but don't yet feel ready to mix it on your own, we could try it together. I'll respond to everyone, but I won't be able to take part in every project: my day, like yours, has only 24 hours. 

Ahead, new collaborations, and, I believe, even more interesting ones. Restoration of a couple of projects from the past (maybe someday I'll even get around to the out-of-tune ping-pong guitar). And the thing all of this was started for in the first place: a new project of my own.