How does an ensemble play music collectively whereas aside? This was the query dealing with Frederick Ajisafe and the remainder of the MIT Wind Ensemble (MITWE) firstly of the Covid-19 pandemic. One technique was to individually document tracks that have been later combined collectively to sound like a full ensemble.

“It was an odd expertise,” says Ajisafe, who performs the tuba and is pursuing a double main in aerospace engineering and music. “It wasn’t as cohesive as enjoying collectively in individual, however the outcomes are one thing to be pleased with.”

Now that the group is ready to rehearse in individual as soon as once more, Ajisafe has a renewed appreciation for the group he has discovered inside MITWE.

“So far as the togetherness of the ensemble, the intangible and social connections that all of us have, I really feel like we’re again in that sense,” he says. “The most important distinction is that I’m a senior. The final time we have been collectively with out masks, I used to be a freshman wanting as much as folks, however now persons are wanting as much as me.”

An achieved musician, Ajisafe has been enjoying the tuba since center faculty.

“In center faculty, I heard a number of issues like ‘music makes you smarter,’ so I mentioned, ‘okay, I need to be smarter,’ so I joined the band program,” says Ajisafe. “One thing about my lip form and my lung capability was actually good for the tuba.”

It was greater than only a bodily affinity for the instrument that saved Ajisafe enjoying; he additionally liked the social side of enjoying in an ensemble. Final yr, he was accepted as an Emerson Scholar in tuba efficiency, receiving backed non-public classes with famend skilled tuba participant Ken Amis.

Ajisafe has additionally taken a wide range of courses in MIT’s Music and Theater Arts part that cowl a variety of matters, from conventional principle to composition.

One among his favourite courses is 21M.361 (Digital Music Composition), which teaches the best way to pattern and manipulate sounds in several software program. Among the sounds Ajisafe sampled all through the course of the category embody snapping, clapping, enjoying a scale on his tuba, and slamming an object on the bottom. Then, these sounds have been match to a rating Ajisafe created for a earlier project. He described the method as intellectually satisfying, in addition to pushing the envelope in how he understands music.

“Most individuals in all probability wouldn’t name it music, but it surely has musical parts,” says Ajisafe. “It provides you a brand new perspective on the world.”

From spelling bees to pure language processing

Ajisafe grew up in Orlando, Florida, and had a variety of pursuits rising up.

“No matter they have been instructing at school, I used to be enthusiastic about,” he says. “I used to be at all times involved in phrases and issues like that, however I used to be additionally involved in science and math.”

Rising up near NASA’s Kennedy House Heart, it’s simple to see how Ajisafe cultivated an curiosity in aerospace.

“Aerospace engineering is probably the most thrilling subject inside engineering proper now,” says Ajisafe. “And you’ll see it with all the stuff occurring in Florida. Seeing all of the rocket launches impressed me to select aerospace engineering and as soon as I received into it, it confirmed that an increasing number of.”

However there was additionally a childhood participation within the native spelling bee that tickled his curiosity in phrases. Now, he’s engaged on a undertaking, by means of MIT’s Undergraduate Analysis Alternatives Program, that mixes linguistics, pure language processing, and plane design necessities.

One of many challenges of writing design necessities for plane is ambiguity, particularly when the necessities are written in conventional, pure language type. Extra engineers are turning to model-based techniques engineering requirements, which is newer and extra formalized. Ajisafe is tackling the issue of translating the unique necessities into the newer type, particularly, placing collectively consultant coaching information for a machine studying algorithm.

“I’m determining the extra granular degree to label these types of sentences to determine if we may use a extra automated system utilizing components of speech,” Ajisafe explains. “For instance, possibly you’ll be able to devise a sample that labels a noun in the beginning of a sentence because the entity essential to techniques engineers, like ‘the parachute shall deploy presently’ — the parachute is the entity.”

As an alternative of changing each element of the sentence to a system mannequin, his workforce has decided that it’s efficient to concentrate on labeling and extracting sure key parts.

The undertaking combines many alternative expertise that Ajisafe has picked up all through his MIT profession, all coming collectively in concord to sort out a novel downside.

“I at all times need to see the subsequent factor past”

Subsequent yr, Ajisafe plans to pursue his grasp’s diploma by means of the Division of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“Finally, I wish to be working with the technical issues associated to house exploration and getting humanity to the celebs,” says Ajisafe. “I don’t know precisely the place I slot in that, however hopefully I can have a optimistic impression.”

And naturally, prefer it’s been all through his life, he desires to proceed doing music, whether or not or not it’s enjoying tuba or attempting different shops.

“For humanity to outlive, it’s good and possibly even mandatory to hunt out different locations in addition to Earth,” Ajisafe says as regards to his profession aspirations. However, it connects to how he approaches his private life as nicely: “I at all times need to stroll out someplace I’ve by no means been earlier than and be in a spot that I’m fully unfamiliar with. I at all times need to see the subsequent factor past.”