Illuminated by the blue and purple fluorescent lights of his monitor, senior Snehil Kakani slips on his headphones and plugs in his producer keyboard. He taps the brightly lit keys, mixing sounds, instruments and beats until electronic synths and drums fill his headphones, creating his favorite track to date, “Game Over.”
Kakani’s musical journey began with the classical instruments he picked up throughout elementary and middle school: piano, clarinet, drums and guitar. As Kakani moved on to high school and began listening to trending artists like Marshmello and Metro Boomin, his musical interests shifted. Jamming to the “dark feel” of their beats, Kakani felt inspired to produce electronic music with his own creative spin.
“It was really fascinating for me to be able to program and synthesize sounds,” Kakani said.
Despite these successes, his newfound passion for production didn’t prove easy. Kakani often felt overwhelmed by the complexity of his new equipment and software needed to pursue his interest in electronic music making.
“I was left wondering if it was really worth it to endure the struggles to learn how to produce music,” Kakani said.
Regardless, Kakani took a brave dive into GarageBand, a software application provided on all Apple devices and used by many beginner music creators. By experimenting with the software interface and immersing himself in the basics through YouTube tutorials by creators like Ocean, Kakani used GarageBand as an outlet to experiment and build confidence in his creativity.
“I really like the idea of experimenting with different melodies and messing around with them,” Kakani said.
As Kakani’s interest in music production grew, he realized he wanted to explore some more advanced features. He turned to Logic Pro, a professional digital audio workstation that offers a range of advanced features including enhanced audio recording, editing capabilities, music score importing and expansive downloadable virtual instruments.
“Adapting to Logic Pro was a lot more complicated,” Kakani said. “I was messing around with it — exploring different functions that the program offers and installing new plugins”
Eventually, Kakani reached out to Eshwar Rajesekar, a recent Lynbrook graduate who raps, in hopes to collaborate and produce music together.
“Since Snehil was trying to get into this whole process and we were already friends, we decided to collaborate,” Rajasekar said.
These small steps would eventually become the key to his success, kickstarting his music career and releasing his first single, “Rain Falling,” on June 1, 2023.
“Music production has made me more open to trying new things,” Kakani said.
With this growing interest in music production, Kakani hopes to continue pursuing his passion after high school through audio engineering. This career involves many of the skills that he is currently developing, such as mixing sounds and using different electronic equipment.
“I have no idea how my future in music is going to pan out, but I’m excited to find out,” Kakani said.
