Mihalis Vanezis (Hali)
I have been embarking on somewhat of an experiment to see the limitations of my own musicality.
Self taught multi-instrumentalist
My musical journey has been somewhat atypical. I spent a lot of my childhood appreciating and listening to music, obsessing over artists and new genres, while never actively taking a part in playing with music. I managed grade 1 on piano before promptly giving up as I had no interest in learning to play the grade pieces they put in front of me. Other than that, I owned a guitar that collected dust under my bed. I believed myself to be simply unmusical, of no talent, and I considered it to be too late for me to become musical. Almost every famous musician you hear of has musical parents and/or musical training from a young age after all.
It wasn't until after my 18th birthday that I really started playing with music. I began learning music production software. Then in early in 2019 I had a significant change in my family that led to me dropping out half way through a University of Birmingham philosophy course and doing some soul searching. I went abroad and met many inspiring people.
I had somewhat of a liberating revelation. What if music wasn't something so inaccessible? What if I could draw value from simply trying?
The first instrument I really began taking seriously was bass guitar. I had owned it for a while beforehand, but after a few visits to some more musically enthusiastic friends of friends I found myself seriously inspired to learn. I began with bass tabs, learning to play along to some of my favourite songs. But I would say things really kicked off when I attempted to learn lines by ear.
But it was never just an interest in one instrument. I have always been keen to try anything I could get my hands on. Initially that was ukulele, bass and hand drums. Then I spent a lot of time learning classical and folk style guitar during my philosophy course at Swansea University.
And more recently I have been delving into wind instruments, initially didgeridoo, then tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute and trumpet.
In 2022 I joined ICMP to do a creative music production course. From there I have been officially developing my skills in the more technological sides of music production, as well as making many connections and collaborating with different artists.
Since joining I have started releasing some of my more DAW based electronic/experimental music under the name Halius Balius. And I have also had my first ever live music experiences playing electric guitar and bass guitar for friends and artists in small-time gigs around London.
I have also now performed in my own band playing our own music - Belly Blaster
Consisting of Cyrus Farn on vocals and triangle, Joe Rao on guitar, Milan Tharmaratnam on drums and me on bass.