After hours of adjusting and readjusting notes, junior Alexander Jong listens to his latest composition. Melding together piano, synthesizers and electric guitar, Jong found a creative outlet in producing music inspired by his favorite video games.

Jong started playing piano at 8 years old, learning pieces while casually experimenting with different melodies. By the time he reached eighth grade, he was inspired to begin composing his own music.

“When I first created art, it’s not because I thought, ‘Okay, today I’m gonna make art,’” Jong said. “A lot of the time, it just came to me and I had to write it down. It’s still like that sometimes, but if you really want to get better, you have to be disciplined and try to make something even without inspiration.”

Inspired by video games like the Touhou Project series, Jong started creating music reminiscent of popular soundtracks. Despite his music experience, he faced initial challenges adapting to composition software like MuseScore.

“Learning the software is the hardest part of any digital form of creation because there’s so many bells and whistles,” Jong said. “I had to spend the first few weeks on my app Googling everything to figure out how to learn. But because I had such a great music theory background already, that part wasn’t too bad.”

After four years of composing music, he’s become most skilled at using MuseScore. When composing, Jong takes his time to carefully refine little details.

“Most of my time is spent editing these individual notes or melodies,” Jong said. “I really want to make it the best that it can be before I say it’s done.”

After he’s finished with a piece, he uploads the song to his YouTube channel, Heiwuniao. However, he isn’t publishing on YouTube to gain subscribers, but rather to keep a record of all his work in one place.

“I want to create just to create,” Jong said. “A lot of the time, what’s popular is not going to be the most artistically challenging or fulfilling for you.”

Though his current schedule doesn’t allow him to compose as much, he exercises his artistic vision in different ways, such as writing poetry. He wants to compose more elaborate pieces in the future. In the meantime, he’s excited to pursue new avenues of creation and deepen his personal connection to art.

“It’s nice when what you create aligns with what people like, but you don’t want to be reliant on other people’s opinions for what could be ‘good art’ or ‘bad art,’” Jong said. “Make what is creatively fulfilling to yourself.”