On composing for a brain that is always listening.
There is a sound I make before I compose.
Not a note. Not a melody. More like a settling — a slow exhale through the nose, a stillness that arrives in the hands before it reaches the mind. My body knows what’s about to happen before I do. It prepares. It waits.
For most of my life, I didn’t understand why music felt like more than pleasure. Why certain frequencies landed in my chest like something remembered. Why a particular rhythm could turn...