Bits and Pieces Pt. 1

I go to music school every Saturday at Juilliard. I’m a composer in the Pre-College Division, which is in part, as many people call it, a moneymaker for the college. But I see it primarily as a venue for talented young musicians to hone their skills and have ample opportunity to express them. I am halfway through my fifth and final year and I can tell you it’s been quite the ride.

My involvement in the composition, cello and vocal departments adds up to a lot of welcome yet strenuous work. When placed side by side with the drama caused by my various romantic endeavors in the composition department and the presence of my dynamic and intense core group of friends, each Saturday demands a heavy load of physical and mental stamina. But for the three years preceding senior year, my weekly 12-hour, grueling, Juilliard days provided the light I needed to get through the monotonous tunnel of high school life, especially when guy were involved.

Before Aidan, I’d only ever been truly interested in composers. It started with Connor at camp. His mathematical approach to composing often made me wonder about the role of emotion in his music, but we all knew it was there. The sequences allowed him to maintain the order in his life which he values above all else. Emotion, by route, was second. But it was there.

Edward came next, also a student at our composition camp but a Juilliard composer as well. His music was tonal but effectively so. It unleashed the emotion that Edward could not express through simple conversations. I listened intently in the audience and that’s how I knew.

Jacob was atonal. And I knew that from the first day of Juilliard our junior year. He was the new kid in the room who found out quickly that he was an anomaly. We think of him as a craftsman whose goal in writing music is not to express but rather to create what sounds good. If I had realized how this philosophy applies to the bulk of his persona, I would have foreseen the outcome of our tumultuous relationship. Thankfully, for the sake of my growth, I did not.

Aidan is an anomaly. He told me recently that the extent of his compositional experience lies in the songs he formulates in the shower. “My siblings make fun of me,” he chuckled. The conversation was harmless at that point. The science notebooks were still open and he hadn’t yet begun his hour long dating-centered monologue, sprinkled with occasional, befuddled interventions by me. Unlike at Juilliard, the school hallway was quiet. We were a mere few feet from the school band room, but there were no sounds of musicians practicing in the background to add a supporting countermelody, like there had been for the starts of my other relationships. This time, I was faced with the silence and the challenge of filling it and for a natural filler of silence, this task proved less easy than it would seem.