"My mother started my music career by teaching me to play my first song"

YOSSI TYBERG, music and vocal producer

1. My first musical mentors were my parents. My father was a great baal tefillah and extremely musical, so I learned a lot about melody, rhythm and pitch from him. My mother started my music career by teaching me to play my first song. The instrument was a fan organ, which I received for my eighth birthday.

2. I was born in Israel, and moved to the States with my family when I was a year old. I was raised in Boro Park, and live in Flatbush today.

3. My first music job was when I was twelve years old, and got hired to play at a bar mitzvah. I got paid $20 for the entire evening.

4. I work very intensely on musical projects, spending hours editing vocals or mixing after the singer leaves the studio, so sometimes it can take me months to be able to listen again to the music I’ve produced.

5. I have what some people call “earworm” or “stuck-song syndrome,” meaning that there is constantly some song playing inside my head long after the music’s over.

6. My personal pick of the songs of this past year is “Kah Ribon – Far Dir,” composed by Chesky Weiss. I had the opportunity to record it with Avraham Fried on the recently released Project Relax. Avremel took it to a new level — he sings it so beautifully.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 831)