Muqtasid's Love for Science

Composing and Producing Music

"Since 2013, I indulged heavily in musical performances and acquired external accreditations for percussion instruments (Tabla, Drums), Guitar and more recently, Piano. But my real musical passion which was always getting cooked in the slow fire of my brain's oven, was about how music can influence a listener’s feelings and emotions. Since the beginning, I have craved to understand, explore and experiment deeper into this aspect. Just for fun, 2016 gave birth to a young YouTuber in myself, by launching a channel for funny videos. It involved conceiving ideas for short hilarious skits, writing scripts, providing directions to the actors (my brother, cousins and friends from the neighbourhood/school), polishing and fine-tuning videos and publishing them on this YouTube channel. I had great fun recording, editing and posting these videos, which were also enjoyed a lot by friends and family, but it also gradually created a fair fan following in the form of 134 subscribers and a few videos with more than 500 views. I used to download freely available music to use it for background score of these videos. Recognition from the audience kept motivating me towards filmmaking and entertaining people, and I equally enjoyed influencing people's emotions, mostly to make them laugh. Gradually I started realizing that I am more inclined towards the musical aspect of this overall experience. A major I ended up watching the movie Interstellar, opening up to the luminary minds of film-maker Christopher Nolan and composer Hans Zimmer. Getting strongly influenced to dive deeper into further of genius creations by the same team - Inception, the Dark Knight Trilogy, I was inspired by how Nolan and Zimmer experimented with movie making and background score and how their creation so aptly stood between the two distant styles -  mainstream, appealing to the masses and purely niche artistic output, only appreciated by expert critiques. In addition to observing that perfect blend of artistic creation, the other aspect I have loved about Zimmer is his ability to experiment – how he used a continuously ascending Shepherd Tone in the movie “Dunkirk” to create rising tension in the audience to feel the same fear and uncertainty felt by world-war 2 soldiers lying on the beach, waiting for the air attack bombs to be dropped, and having no clue who on that beach will stay alive after the next few moments. At a later stage in my journey, I also was inspired by other artists like Ludwig Göransson - for his innovative use of synthesizers and blending them with orchestral and cinematic sounds, Jacob Collier- for his experimental vocal harmony techniques, Charlie Puth - for pop production and musical ideas and french DJ Worakls - for integrating electronic elements or experimental sounds with classical instruments, a fusion that can result in a unique and appealing style."

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Playing with SoundTrap

Initially, Ihtesham started playing more with simpler software tools like SoundTrap to digitally create music for fun, without knowing any music theory or having any goal for what he wanted to create, but merely enjoying the process. In almost every other activity Ihtesham has done, the outcome is what has excited him the most, however with music, while the outcome of any project is certainly exciting, the intricacies of an intuitive process are even more exhilarating.

As described here...

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Creating and publishing Music, on Soundcloud

As Ihtesham started to play around with Ableton and Logic, he became more familiar with the craft of production. The following SoundCloud link captures everything he created to experiment and understand music more profoundly.

https://soundcloud.com/ihtesham-baig/tracks 

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Cadence

On September 3, Ihtesham released an experimental 4-track EP following the genre of techno, called 'Cadence.' Being familiar with composing and producing, the main challenges arose with mixing and mastering. Hence, over 2 months, Ihtesham self-learned how to mix and master electronic tracks and applied his knowledge to create the EP.

The main idea of 'Cadence' was to branch out into multiple genres, with a common genre of techno, and have a sonic palette that hangs between electronic and acoustic, by using a wide mix of sounds, such as orchestral instruments, a piano, synthesizers etc.

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As of October, ‘Cadence’ has been streamed almost 8000 streams on Spotify.

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Composing and Scoring for College Applications

The Challenge Within

An orchestral piece based on the prompts “Adventure,” “Danger” and “Questioning one’s capability”

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Afternoon Class

A score for a short animated film called ‘Afternoon Class’ composed solely using a piano

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Spider-man Into the Spider-verse: Leap of Faith scene

A score for one of the climactic scenes from the 2018 animated film, ‘Spiderman Into the Spiderverse’ using orchestral instruments, synthesizers, sound effects and a piano

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Resonance

An orchestral piece based on sombre and hopeful themes

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Nina Burmi- Mishra Bhairavi Thumri (Reinterpretation)

A rearrangement of a section from Nina Burmi’s live ‘Mishra Bhairavi Thumri’ consisting of her voice and a sarangi, made using a piano, synthesizers, strings and sound effects.

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Ihtesham's experience with exploration and experimentation

"I thoroughly enjoy experimenting with music production, focusing on achieving enjoyable outcomes. One of the greatest sources of my inspiration for music, and more specifically, vocal production - is Jacob Collier, the renowned musician. I closely followed his session breakdowns on YouTube, where he harnessed the power of a colossal 384GB RAM digital audio workstation (DAW) environment, to craft intricate tracks. During my high school days, I worked in the music lab, primarily using the Logic Pro DAW on a Mac system. I collaborated with a friend to stack vocal harmonies, driven by sheer curiosity about the sonic possibilities. We embarked on this musical journey by recording and stacking hummed notes and, as Collier likes to call it, “Vocal pyramids”, based on chords we didn’t even know the exact name of. I devoted as much time as I could during school, to keep adding more layers of harmonies until the Logic system, operating on 8GB RAM, eventually reached its limits over several days, accumulating 150 tracks. In the end, I created a beautiful and sonorous sound that I continue to employ as a sample in many of my tracks. This included one of the pieces I submitted for my undergraduate college applications. After graduating from high school, I committed a significant portion of my time to composing and promoting music. The sample has been used in various ways in every song of the EP I recently released on Spotify in August 2023.

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In the realm of music, I find gratification not only in the final product but especially in the intricate process of its creation. Let me elaborate further, by using the tracks in my Spotify EP, as an example. In the initial stage of composing, I worked on the chord movements. Consecutively, I incorporated sounds from a diverse range of styles, including synthesizers from house music, strings resembling chamber music, and acoustic piano sounds processed with digital effects. I dabbled with a lot of sounds, such as humming melodies and heavily processing them with autotune, distorting piano sound to the extent that it sounds like a synth, and applied various skills I acquired from my Music Production Technology (MPT) diploma at the Global Music Institute (GMI). One of my favourite sounds I put together was stacking voice messages from my friends and family to make a crowd vocal for the intro track.

The next phase involved the meticulous mixing and mastering of these scores. While I had a solid foundation from my studies at GMI, I embarked on extensive research, particularly on YouTube, to enhance my knowledge and skills. It was a formidable task dealing with nearly 200 tracks in a single mix. Making a kick loud enough without clipping the master seemed quite challenging at first. However, with persistent efforts, I produced the initial drafts, which I rigorously tested on various devices, including headphones, car speakers, phones, and laptops to get a thorough understanding of how intact the tracks are. This testing process identified multiple issues, which I addressed through continuous refinements while mixing and mastering. In less than two months, my Spotify EP garnered nearly 7500 streams, marking a significant milestone in my musical journey."

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