Aalap's first encounter with a key based instrument was with a harmonium when he was a kid. His father Dipesh Desai is a reputed music director for regional gujarati tv serials, albums and movies and his mother Varsha Desai is a trained Bharatnatyam dancer which is why he was exposed to music at an early age. He learnt indian classical music(vocals and harmonium) for a couple of years. Since then he's been learning the Keyboards & Piano mostly on his own. While he loves all kinds of musical genres and World music in general, Aalap is heavily influenced by music which has a strong melodic element. This includes Western Classical, Indian Classical, Ghazals, Sugama sangeetha, Rock(Progressive, Alternative, Indie, Old school), Pop, Blues, Folk, Sufi, EDM, DubStep and Fusion. Aalap also plays keyboards and sings for other bands in the bay area and is grateful that he gets to learn a lot on a daily basis from fellow artists who are immensely talented and hardworking. He's passionate about composing and arranging original music.

Aalap has composed, arranged the music and has provided lead vocals for independent albums, background scores for independent short films produced in United States and in India, title songs for Gujarati TV serials, songs and background score for a full length Hindi feature film, score and songs for ad films, TV jingles, Radio jingles, TV series produced in the United States and in India. Aalap was the music director/composer for a musical ballet - an off broadway production that opened to positive critical reviews in New York. He has also created original compositions, themes and background scores for numerous musicals and live theatre shows produced by eminent theatre production houses in California and New York.