Today we’d like to introduce you to Gautham Garg.
Gautham, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
From a young age, I was always into playing different musical instruments. The earliest recollection of mine was when I was five years old. My parents were watching a movie that I had no mind for, and I decided to play on the electronic Yamaha keyboard in the playroom. I had played one of their preset songs and was drumming along on the small handheld Indian drums known as Tablas. When my parents noticed, they saw my love of percussion, and from there went on to help find me a drum teacher. Finally, when I was six, they found me a teacher, and I took formal lessons for roughly three years when I also started getting into piano playing after watching my sister play for a very long time. I also ended up taking piano lessons for two years until I lost interest in playing other people’s music. I always felt the need to create things of my own – even the toys I used to play with as a child had to enable me to create things rather than use preexisting ideas. After quitting lessons, I fell out of touch with drums for a while and spent more time messing around with the piano, coming up with random melodies and chords in my free time. It was also around age 7 when my mom introduced me to a euro-pop duo called Modern Talking. She had always been into 80s Disco, Rock, and Euro Pop from her early days, listening to people such as Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, and she passed that down to me. It was bands like this that got me into electronic music. Around the time I was 10, we purchased an iPad, and my mom told me about an app called GarageBand. I found it interesting, as I could make entire songs with just one device. I began doing remixes of songs I liked on the radio, trying to match the chords by listening to them and such. But after a while, I began to forget about GarageBand and moved on with life. Later, in 5th grade, I was introduced to a game called Geometry Dash. I was practically addicted to the game, and the soundtrack of the game contained a lot of Electro House, Drum and Bass, and Dubstep. As I didn’t know much of the terminology at the time, I began to research all about these types of genres and was enamored by the entire EDM community. It was not exactly well known among the people I knew, so I found it as unique to me and fell in love with almost all genres under the large sub-category.
Eventually, I wanted to figure out how I could make this kind of music myself and started researching that as well when one day, I stumbled across a software called FL Studio. I watched some basic tutorials and then over summer break of 5th grade, I convinced my parents to get me the 20 dollar version of FL Studio for the iPad. I then spent the next 5 to 6 months toying around with FL Studio Mobile but didn’t find as big of a community around it as the version they had for the computer. Finally, that Christmas, my sister got FL Studio for me on the computer. I still use it to this day. For the first 3 or 4 years, I mainly spent my time just having fun with it, and seeing it as more of a hobby. I never even fathomed the idea that it could be a career. But eventually, as I grew older, my taste in music evolved more from a happy, upbeat electro house and dubstep to more serious and heavy bass techno. I also began to figure out I loved repetitive and hypnotic sounding music. All while figuring this out, I was also learning more about mixing my music, hardware synthesizers, DJing, and also making a career out of music. The overall goal is to become a successful producer and DJ my music to share with many people. That leads to where I am today. While I am still 16 years old and have a lot to learn, it is a big goal of mine to make music a career, and thanks to much support from my friends and family, it can more than likely be a possibility.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
One of the main struggles has been my lack of connections. Because my parents were immigrants, we didn’t know many people and struggled with finding connections. While trying to contact venues, other producers, and even our Home Owner’s Association to get me a gig to DJ, we found the reception to be very minimal. This has been one of the hardest struggles, as getting my music out there is one of the most important aspects of becoming successful.
We’d love to hear more about your music.
I am mainly a music producer, working in almost every electronic subgenre, and I also specialize in DJing and have already had a couple of gigs locally. I am proud of being able to have come far enough in music production at an age where not many people say they can. I can be seen different from others as I am very open-minded to all kinds of music, I have perfect pitch, I love all kinds of music in general, and have figured out how to get music out on streaming platforms such as Spotify all on my own. I am a self-learner. Also, as I didn’t have many connections, I had to think outside of the box and found a community of young music producers such as myself to support one another with feedback, promotion, and moral support. It was motivating to see other people with the same passion as me, all lifting each other.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
The fact that I have surrounded by electronic music my entire life and have been alive during a time where I can find out anything online have been major contributions to my business. In addition, this past August, I got my first break as I booked my first gig to DJ. It has played a very important role, but it can only take me so far. As hard work needs to be put in as well. This streak of luck has continued further as I’ve been meeting with more local techno heads in the Dallas scene.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 4692629369
- Email: decoderstems@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialdecoder/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gautham.garg.5
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfjhRyQ_tcaLSKQH47bVa8w
Image Credit:
Kush Gandhi
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