For sophomore Kunal Sharma, the introduction to creating his own music began while riding the bus home, during middle school.

“It all basically came back to this one time I was on the bus, when I heard some weird music. It was by an artist called Skrillex, and I thought it sounded really cool and unique. I got home and looked it up, and that was how I started my music career,” Sharma said.

Sharma creates primarily electronic music, under the production name “Hanged From Roses.”

“I picked the name because my music is entirely driven by my emotion. A lot of the time, my music is aggressive sounding because I feel aggressive, like the word ‘hanged.’ But when I feel nicer, I produce nicer feeling music, hence ‘roses’,” Sharma said.

Signed with an independent, local record label, Big Pig Records, he posts music on the music-streaming website soundcloud, where he currently has two original songs and a remix, for which he had previously released a preview, released Feb. 2.

“Big Pig Records is a smaller label that is apart of 12 Planet Artist. I’d rather sign with a label known as Smog Record Label, but I want to have the perfect song picked out as a demo for them,” Sharma said.

Sharma uses a production software called Ableton, which allows him to use external audio, Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), and his personal preference — manually inputting notes to create a melody.

“Ableton, and to a further extent all of electronic music, is cool because it allows you to create a song any way you want to, you’re free to experiment. I’ve created over 100 songs  that I have saved in my hard drive,” Sharma said.

The two original songs Sharma has published are entitled “Blood Rings” and “The Bang.”

“I picked the songs to publish partially because they were indicative of what I was going through. To me, all music is natural: just a way to express myself. I also published them because hip-hop and trap are popular, so I thought people would listen to them,” Sharma said.

His remix, “Lick it (Hanged From Roses Jungle Remix),” was a song originally by American DJ, Kaskade, with his own spin on it.

“A remix is more uncomfortable because when it starts, it’s not your own sounds. You take a sample from another song and it’s harder to improve upon that, which makes it take more time,” Sharma said.

Sharma enrolled in a Music Theory class to enhance his creative abilities.

“Most of the time, I have to choose between school work and music, so taking the class sort of reconciles the two. Usually I choose to skip some of my school work because music is what I want to do, but the class helps me widen my variety of music I can create, which is helpful because I like all types of music,” Sharma said.

As Sharma continues to create music, his advice to other musicians is to have a simple “do-what-you-want” attitude.

“I don’t share a majority of my songs that I’ve created. I just don’t care about what other people’s opinions on my music is, and the songs I did share I posted because Hip-Hop and Trap are popular genres. I would say that musicians shouldn’t pay attention to what others have to say,” Sharma said.