Shamil Khan.

Returning to the drums.

After several years away from music, Shamil began playing again. He remembers wondering how much of his drumming he would recover. Practice gave him a way back into it, and the return grew into something he could share with other musicians.

He helped bring people together to form a band and start its online presence. He was also learning about music production from people around the studio where they jammed. The work gave him new things to try, alongside a practice he already cared about.

Making the work because it matters.

When asked whether he would keep making music without the views, Shamil’s answer was yes. He described beginning for himself. The response to the band’s work was welcome, but the desire to play and make something was already there.

His professional software experience at Amazon sits alongside that creative practice. In the founder conversations, he wanted both music and computer science to have a place in what he helped build. He brings practical involvement in making music as well as experience working in software.

The band is one expression of that approach to collaboration. It involved finding people, playing together and giving the work a place to be heard. Learning production opened another part of the making process for him to explore.

Music and software, both in Dwar.

Shamil’s focus in Dwar is contributing to the music and developing software tools that support the research as it grows. These give him two connected ways to take part in the venture, through creative work and through the tools people use to do and examine their work.

Music has a place in how an audience encounters a journey. Software can support how the team organises and works with its research. Shamil brings his experience to developing those contributions with the others, while continuing the musical practice that brought him back to the drums.