A strange buzzing echoed through my bedroom as I woke one morning. I covered my ears, but the buzzing didn’t fade––it surged louder. With a jolt of panic, it hit me that these shivers of electricity weren’t coming from outside, they were sparking from within my head. At age thirteen, I had tinnitus. 

My ear infection from the week prior cleared with treatment, but in its absence came the phantoms of an incurable symptom. The disturbing buzz of tinnitus chased me, from disrupted study sessions and sleepless nights to the anxiety that came with. In the midst of this storm of static, the world of music that had surrounded me since childhood began to distort, and for the first time, felt distant. Brahms violin sonatas were forced behind a glass barrier, Mozart flute concertos were hidden behind an extraneous noise. Rests failed their duty to deliver silence, instead providing space for bursts of static. Beethoven's Tempest piano sonata unfolded underneath my fingers, conveying to me his pain that I finally understood. Like him, I am a musician, but my ears carry a burden. 

I tried to forget the presence of the sound, but it roared back. I tried to surround myself with white noise, but it demanded to be heard. The silence I once knew was gone, replaced by a constant buzz that rewrote how I experienced the world. But time is indifferent to tinnitus, and life carried on. I stopped waiting for the sound to disappear and began listening to what it was trying to say. The buzz was a haunting melody, one that only I could hear, and only I could translate. I composed not to escape the sound, but to understand it. Through dissonant harmonies that carried the weight of hardship and authentic cadences that whispered hope, the noise that once drowned out my music began to shape it. At sixteen, I premiered my first piece at a retirement home, sharing more than a melody, but a part of myself. From writing and performing my own music, it became clear that each composer is a translator, turning emotions, experiences, and voices into sound. In the symphony of life, tinnitus plays the counterpoint: it challenges harmony, but allows every phrase to sing with emotion.