I am currently a senior in high school, perhaps the only one in the world who has been with Steem throughout my high school experience.

My generation is rather unique for coming with 9/11, and graduating with the Corona Virus pandemic which now plagues us. Within this post, I will discuss the two things which have made high school most memorable: Music and Steem.

Back when we all thought 2020 would be normal.

Symphonic Overture for Commencement

I have posted this piece several times, but now I can tell the full story.

I spent over half a year composing this piece for my class' graduation in 2020. Sadly, the corona virus pandemic is eliminating many of the memories that my class was supposed to get, including a live performance of that piece (which now seems impossible to pull off).

Composition Began

I began composition last spring one day because the idea popped into my head. I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, but I wrote the exposition fairly quickly, and it excited me greatly. At the time, I did not really have plans of making it for graduation, and, as a result, the instrumentation was different.

One day, I thought it might make a good graduation piece, so I asked my band director for permission to write it as such (and add more instruments). He green lit the project.

Over the summer, I worked on this a lot. The two big projects this summer were The King Arthur String Quartet and this piece. It is impossible to describe what it was like to compose this piece. On the one hand, it is the biggest composition I have ever attempted; the possibilities are limitless, and my chances to experiment with ideas grew exponentially. On the other hand, it is the biggest composition I have ever attempted; orchestration is not something which I am naturally gifted with, and midi software isn't exactly the most realistic. On top of it all, I composed it on software which I have been using since 3rd grade. That software is great for small piano projects, but when you get into a symphonic piece with over 25 parts, and over 200 measures, it is a blessing if the piece loads without crashing. When I went to a college visit, and showed the professor this piece, he asked:

"What software do you use?"

When I told him, he turned to my father and said:

"If your son can push himself to write this on THAT SOFTWARE, I know he has the discipline and perseverance to push himself to do anything."

I will admit, many of the hours I spent working on this were spent waiting for the software to load or register what I was doing. But, in the end, it worked.

Revisions Began

The first time I played a completed draft for my private theory teacher, he said:

"This is very ambitious!"

And I got very scared because it made me think that there was still work to be done. If the listener's first impression is "ambitious", that means that I have not met the criteria I need to meet to write such a piece, and something is off.

So, after I posted the first post, I wound up adding two large sections: a fugue, and an orchestrated version (with choir) of my school's Alma Mater by Samuel Barber. That first post's YouTube video was almost 5 minutes. The final product is over 8 minutes long.

After I had finished it, I spent the last few months tweaking a lot of little things in the orchestration, and individual parts. I showed it to the teachers, and asked for suggestions for things to change so that it would sound better and be more natural to play. There is so much to consider because parts can be awkward, combinations can be weird, and there may be certain factors which will make themself VERY apparent in real life that I can't see in my software.

Rehearsals? NAH Pandemics

After making all of the changes, I began to try to make preparations to rehearse the piece. Then came Covid19. Even after the world shut down, I (along with my gracious and wonderful teachers) tried to figure out how to get things together, but the software which our school is using for virtual practice (Smart Music) does not allow (on the free subscription given out during the pandemic) you to upload your own music file. As a result, chances of rehearsing are very slim, and it looks like this piece will forever be a midi file. But, that is ok because I learned a lot while writing it. I feel very proud of the work that I have done, and though I never got to make the big memory of witnessing a live performance, I got A TON of little memories of cursing at the software when it didn't play what I'd written correctly. And the best memory of all, every time I tried to do a play through and the software crashed and gave me the message of death.

In the end, it is rather disappointing (almost depressing) that this may never come to be played live. Not because I didn't put in the work, but because of something completely out of my control. But, even if this piece is never played live, it was a step forward for me, and I have plenty of incredible memories throughout high school! For that, I am forever grateful! Here is the piece along with a slide show of some of those memories:

Steem in High School

I don't want to brag, but I might be the only user on this platform who has gone through all 4 years of high school while posting (mostly) consistently. That is great for me because a lot of what is important in my life has been logged forever on this blockchain (as well as on the blockchains that fork off of Steem but take the stake that those posts earned me away). But I would like to discuss my memories of Steem through high school since I have the unique perspective of a growing high schooler on this chain:

I remember when I first joined Steem. It was the summer of 2016 (between 8th and 9th grade for me), and the price was around 4 dollars and 20 cents. At first, I thought what everyone else thinks:

This is too good to be true. This must be a scam.

But then some of my earliest posts earned hundreds of dollars, and when they paid out, I moved half of it to BTC (smartest decision I have ever made. Thanks @remlaps for your advice on that one). Over the next 6 months, the price slowly fell, until the winter when it stabilized around 12 cents (good to know some things never change). Over this period, I posted a lot, but I did not see many high payouts due to the falling price. It was during this winter that I decided that the future was Steem (I guess time will tell if I was right), and I began posting daily for several months. I wanted to accumulate a stake. My ultimate goal: become a whale only through posting and reinvesting the rewards that I had moved to other currencies. Sadly that goal may never become a reality :(

It was during this time that I posted some of my favorite series:
The Art of War Review
The Composer Birthday Series
The Weekly7

I got a lot in stake during that period, and it forced me to become rather attached to Steem as well as the other users who I met. At the end of the year, the price rose a lot, and I remember that I left school worth around 35k in crypto. I remember this because a girl I liked said to me:

"You could buy a good car with that money!"

and all I could think was:

"Why would I waste something so valuable on a car that I'm going to crash at some point?"

My father @remlaps and me in our t-shirts

When sophomore year rolled around, I was not posting as frequently, but I was just as passionate. My father and I got matching T-shirts advertising Steemit because we both believed it was the future. By this point, my friends, peers, and teachers all needed to leave the room to vomit if I even brought up Steem, but I continued to bring it up. It was really bad because they had all warned me to sell, and by January, the price had risen to the point that I was worth 70k in Steem alone. I tried to convince them that crypto and blockchain were the future, but none of them would hear it. They told me to sell, and I told them to go pound sand.

THEN

Over the course of the remaining year, the price fell. I watched my worth go down to 60k, 50k, etc. All while this occurred, my friends, my peers, and my teachers said:

SELLLLLLLLLL

And I said:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

No matter what the price did, my belief that crypto and steem were the future never changed.

Now

This period really hasn't been great for me. In real life, I have had to watch as all of these events which I have dreamed of for the last 4 years are cancelled, and performances that I was looking forward to of Beethoven, King Arthur, and the Graduation piece were also cancelled. On top of it all, Steem was in turmoil. All of this controversy came, and we all had our own views. It climaxed with the creation of the Hive blockchain where a lot of the people who I had connections with have gone. Sadly that blockchain left me behind.

Meanwhile, Steem is going through a rough patch which may wind up being its downfall, and I must watch as everything which I have built falls. All I can hear in the back of my head is all of the people who told me to sell. Suggestions which I deemed arrogant and unfounded. Now it turns out, they might have been right. I refuse to accept it though. I still believe that we can make this platform revolutionary. Yes. Things need to change, but we have the power to change them. I am greatly saddened by this period, but I am also determined because of it.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this! What I am thankful for most is the memories that I have made in high school, and this blockchain for providing me with a 21st century reward-generating journal to store those memories. As long as Steem exists, I will believe in and fight for the values it was built on. If you haven't seen my recent discussion post, make sure to go contribute to the conversation to receive a share of the post's liquid rewards. If life is about making memories, then I am happy to say that I have lived a good life! See you next time!

(Note) In order to encourage meaningful feedback on the platform, I will check comment trails of users who leave superficial comments (ie "Awesome post," or "Upvoted.") and will mute any users who exhibit a pattern of leaving "spammy" comments.