My mom would often recall memories of me singing Katy Perry songs in the shower with the wrong lyrics, or the times I desperately tried to learn how to play my brother’s old guitar at age of 5 or 6. I have heaps of unfinished pop songs, lyrics scribbled on the back of receipts and school notebooks. Music has been a huge part of my life since I was little.

My own memories date back to 2011, age 4, sitting in front of the family computer, playing “Last Friday Night” over and over again, trying to memorize the melody and the lyrics. I barely knew how to play, but I would slam on the keyboards anyway, pretending that whatever notes I was playing would be instrumental to my pop hit.

As the years went by, my love for music grew even more. I enrolled in piano lessons, though I wasn’t very successful (I quit after a year). I sang at school, in the car, at home, any place imaginable. By fourth grade, I was playing the ukulele and was a part of my parish’s junior choir. My music tastes expanded—I went from strictly listening to pop music to occasional bits of indie and rock here and there.

I picked up the guitar in fifth grade. Music started to become more than just fun little tunes I listened to when I was bored, it became an avenue for self-expression. It allowed me to explain the unexplainable, do the impossible. It made me feel so many emotions in a span of two or three minutes.

Once I put my earphones in, suddenly all of the schoolwork I was worried about and whatever I was frustrated about that day faded into the background. Music allowed me to isolate myself from the rest of the world, anxiety-free, just enjoying the melodies spilling in my ear.

Sixth grade was cut short by the pandemic. With the insane amount of free time I had at home, I turned to my instruments. I learned to play way more songs than I could before, with the help of tunings outside of standard, and fingerpicking techniques that made my renditions sound so much like the professionals.

With my growing interest in rock and grunge in the ninth grade, thanks to bands such as Nirvana, Hole and Slowdive, I bought an electric guitar—a huge step from my acoustic—that allowed me to play several other genres of music.

I sought comfort and … pain … in the music of artists such as Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift, that led me to feel uncontrollable hurt with the melancholy strums of their guitars and their emotion-filled voices. (Punisher punches me in the gut every time.) And, of course, I felt impossibly cool with the music of Tyler, the Creator and Kanye West—rap, a genre I never thought I’d enjoy—blaring from my headphones as I dreamed up thousands of fake scenarios that definitely would never happen in real life.

Music also became the reason for many of my friendships. My best friend and I share songs back and forth during our occasional voice calls.

“Have you heard this unreleased Lana Del Rey song? It’s so good.”

“What’s the name of this one? ‘Mascara’ by Deftones, wow.”

How could I forget playlists? The modern mixtape, an intricately curated (at least for me) compilation of songs. I’ve been an avid playlist maker since I discovered how to make them on YouTube. I have around 90 saved on my Spotify account, each representing a different genre, feeling or situation. That’s the beauty of it—it can be about anything. Each playlist of mine also acts as a little time capsule, fragments of my overall music taste at the time of making, all combined to create a mosaic of the songs I love.

I would write a song about how much I love songs, but I’m not very good at that, so this extensive ramble will have to do. —CONTRIBUTED INQ

The author is a ninth grade student from De La Salle Santiago Zobel.