In his music he combines various composition techniques with a sustained interest in traditional Tatar and Bashkir melodic language.
As a child he taught himself to play all the musical instruments that were available at home: the piano and different types of accordion (bayan, talyanka, saratovskaya).
Ismagilov started to compose music at the age of 11 and attended Rustem Sabitov's composition class in 1995–2000.
[2] He graduated from the Lyceum of Ufa State Institute of Arts (Lyudmila Alexeeva's piano class).
[7] Besides composing his own music, Ismagilov has made about 600 transcriptions and arrangements for different sets of instruments.