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About

Frets & Notes is built by Vikas Deo — a composer, guitarist, and sound designer who spends most of his free time chasing the same questions this site is built around:

  • How does the language of music function in terms of notes, intervals, and time?
  • And then what remains common & what differs across instruments, styles, and cultures?

Frets & Notes is where he shares what all of that adds up to: Hopefully useful style-agnostic practices for the guitar.

Vikas Deo in his studio

Background

Vikas primarily plays nylon string guitar, while also learning lap steel, resonator, sarod, bansuri (bamboo flute), mandolin, tenor guitar, trumpet, and piano. His approach has always been about figuring out how common elements work on different instruments work, and how they're used within their own styles and cultures — which is exactly the spirit behind this site's style/genre-agnostic approach to the fretboard.

He studied composition formally, but it was partway through graduate school that he realized the musical language he was looking for actually came through improvisation. That sent him deeper into learning about the concstruction and function of Partimento, Blues, Bluegrass, Jazz, film score cues, the Indian Raag tradition, and online courses by Kenny Werner, John Mortenson, Chris Parks, Thomas Echols, and Danny Ziemann.

Professional Work

Professionally, Vikas creates music and sound design for games and media — drawn to the problem-solving side of scoring and sound creation for both linear and interactive visuals. His work spans pinball machines, slot machines, arcade games, commercials, documentaries, and ice dance programming.

More recently, he completed training through the Music for Healing and Transition Program (MHTP), exploring how music affects people in clinical settings.

Education

  • Music for Healing and Transition Program — MHTP.org (2025)
  • M.M., Composition — Northern Illinois University (2015)
  • Jazz guitar, arranging & composition coursework — DePaul University (2009)
  • Film music & sound design coursework — UCLA Extension (2001)
  • B.M., Guitar Performance — Northern Illinois University (1997)