Undergraduate / Dissonance Debates. College faculty will be judging. [3]

On a gray December morning, I awake at 5:30 A.M. and prepare myself for the coming fourteen hours. Every Saturday, I rise before the sun shows itself and drive to Juilliard's Pre-College program in New York City. However, there's something different today-a new air of excitement.

Today, I'll be participating in a debate.

College faculty will be judging. I have spent the past four days extensively researching, and for additional preparation I recite my arguments to myself on the car trip. Upon my arrival, I hurry to the fifth floor to find my opponent already waiting for me.

"Stockhausen is more dissonant!" I shout from across the hall. The debate has begun.

"You're wrong! Penderecki is-look how he blasts the minor second in his third symphony!" my friend yells back.

"Nuh-uh! Stockhausen's work is called 'anti-music' for a reason!"

This is how I often spend the time between 8:24 and 8:30 A.M. on Saturdays, though the music topics range in depth and subject. Other kids in our Socratic advanced music seminar class will engage, and we express ideas and opinions as though we're getting our master's degrees in twentieth-century composition.

Finally, at 8:30, one of the two professors who teach the seminar course walks up to open the door. He coolly turns to us amid the friendly dispute and explains, "Guys. Guys." He pauses. "Stockhausen is more dissonant." (What? I said there'd be college faculty judging.)

I pump my fist in victory and follow him into the classroom.

Needless to say, music-theory, performance, and history-is one of two main infatuations I enjoy exploring. The concept of music was integrated into my life before I could properly use a napkin, but it apparently caught me in an unusual way, as here I am, fifteen years later, not only knowing who Stockhausen and Penderecki are, but actually understanding their compositional tendencies. One of the reasons Juilliard (especially the aforementioned seminar) has been so wonderful is because it has given me opportunities to meet people who care about music far beyond a level of just playing an instrument or liking certain pieces-rather by always wanting to reach a deeper understanding, often through these practices of debate and discussion. As a result, I just keep learning.

As I said, I have two main means of enjoying life, the second of which is chemistry. This is not merely an interest in chemical science or even a quest to succeed in a class, but indeed a fascination I continuously try to deepen through EBSCOHost searches, near daily conversations with my chemistry teacher (just this morning we discussed fluoroantimonic acid, vanadium crystals, and oxidation number mahjong), and memorization of the periodic table. We've debated about which acid is the most powerful, whether or not the Brřnsted definitions are still relevant, and which element is the "best".

Debates like these will always be there, and I'll come ready with research and determination to let them teach me more.