The short films “The Future is Quantum”, “Speechwriting” and “My Name Is…” all include soundtracks composed and produced by senior Gautam Vedula.
But his passion for composing music wasn’t immediate.
Vedula began taking piano lessons at the age of nine, which gave him his first taste of music that would spark his later interest in composing.
“I was enrolled in piano lessons, but I didn’t like them that much so I quit,” Vedula said. “I started to teach myself how to play and drew a lot of that inspiration to start composing music for fun.”
Although he was not a fan of his lessons, he still had a musical passion. When he was 14, he embraced that passion and started teaching himself how to write music scores and compose.
“I pretty much always learned by myself since I was like seven or eight,” Vedula said. “I have a really good ear, and I can play a lot of things by hearing it once or twice.”
Through Logic Pro, a software on his laptop, Vedula began to create music for fun.By importing orchestral instruments from a digital library, Vedula can play around with different sounds without needing to use a physical instrument.
“I connect my electric piano to my laptop to actually play the music on the software too,” Vedula said.
The more he played around with the software, the more familiar he got and eventually was able to compose elaborate pieces.
To compose a piece is more involved than just playing around with software. There is a process that Vedula goes through to execute his music.
“The creative process starts with an idea and a story,” Vedula said.
When making scores, he always tries to match the mood with the instruments. He often uses motifs, a recurring group of notes that build a theme, as a basis for the entire score. Through consistency and practice, he improved his craft of becoming a better composer.
Classmates also noticed his impressive talents of creating compositions.
“We were in AP Music Theory together and every single class, he would come up with something new,” senior Tiare Vasconcellos said.
In March of 2021, Vedula posted his first original score on Instagram with no expectations.
“People were telling me ‘you should do this more’,” Vedula said, “so I started posting more on Instagram, and eventually someone found my account, and that’s how my short-film career started.”
Senior Aleeza Zakai, director of Cal High’s upcoming play “The Cassettes of San Francisco”, hired Vedula to produce the soundtrack.
“I knew that composing is a very strong skill that he has and he would be able to do justice to the piece,” Zakai said.
She worked with Vedula a lot over the past couple of years when he made scores like “The Future is Quantum”, “My Name Is…”, and a couple of other projects.
“Although he’s trying something new, I know that it’s in his reach to do it,” Zakai said.
With Zakai’s play featuring a jazz score, she found Vedula’s style to match perfectly with her vision of “The Cassettes of San Francisco”.
His visible passion for music resonates with his friends as well.
“He does it all day and night,” senior Zayaan Khan said.
Vedula’s friends see his dedication by taking so much time out of his day to produce music. In the future, Vedula hopes to continue to pursue music in college and one day produce big Hollywood movies and be a recognized film composer.