I Like Me Better When I'm With Them
These days, every catch-up with someone I haven’t seen in months goes the same way.
So what’s up with you?
“Well, I’m still in Cambridge, working the same job. My parents are doing well. Wait, I do have a big life update. I’m friends with a bunch of musicians!”
Oh, that’s cool!
“I’m not sure I can do justice to how cool, but I’ll try…”
Here are a few things within a ten-minute walk of the Berklee College of Music: a major league ballpark, a huge public library, Boston’s densest shopping street, and the headquarters of a niche religion, anchored by a giant reflecting pool.
No wonder, then, that this one-of-a-kind school is an unassuming place. Its dense campus, nestled along two of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, is overshadowed by the chaos surrounding it. On the adjacent side streets, students’ apartments blend seamlessly into stretches of well-preserved rowhouses. The only evidence something’s a little different? All the guitar cases hauled backpack-style by people shuttling between classes.
I was raised two miles and change from Berklee, but until recently could’ve told you more about quantum physics than about what goes down there. In a metropolitan area where the number of degrees conferred annually exceeds entire cities’ populations, the world’s most prominent contemporary music school consistently eludes mass media coverage. The spotlight fixated on Boston’s higher ed scene never seems to shine on the corner of Boylston Street and Massachusetts Avenue; since 2020, Berklee’s name has appeared on the Boston Globe’s website nearly five times less frequently than similarly sized Tufts.
And yet, its reputation is sterling. Utter its name within earshot of any serious songwriter, producer, or record label employee, and they snap to attention: oh, you’re not joking around. Critically acclaimed albums are littered with Berklee fingerprints. The list of alumni is a who’s who of Grammy winners and music business luminaries. I’d be intimidated making those fundraising cold calls!
The several thousand artists who make up Berklee’s student body, fledgling yet already so polished, don’t just drown in music theory homework. They play — a lot. And their shows are different from any other live music experience I know.
It starts with the crowd. Though many Berklee events are free and open to the public, they’re rarely advertised beyond the artists’ immediate circles. The overwhelming majority of attendees are fellow classmates and friends; sprinkle in a handful of local family members eyeing Facebook event postings like hawks, and you’ve got an extremely intimate affair, no more than a few dozen. This has amusing effects. At my first show, I was instantly hit with a small-talk stumper: “what do you play?” To the peppy third-grade music teacher who earnestly saw potential in me, I’m so sorry to disappoint you.
Arriving feels more like entering a sacred space than coming to a concert. One popular place to play is a slightly oversized lounge on the third floor of a campus building; you pass triple dorms on the walk in. All the trappings of an ordinary venue are absent. There’s no doorman to ID you and stamp your hand, no smell of concessions wafting through corridors, no lines for bathrooms holding questionable odors. Before the music starts (after the posted time, without fail) the artists’ friends mill around, commiserating over homework like any college students but greeting each other with strikingly warm hugs that say I’m so glad you’re here.
Then, showtime. Whether the theme is psychedelic soul or punk rock, it’s only a matter of time before your attention is seized by the sort of sound that’d freeze the most hurried passerby. A heart-piercing voice, a hauntingly beautiful cello, pillowy background vocals — these artists are too good not to grab you. In such a low-key setting, it feels downright criminal. You’ll want to hijack a local radio station and shove the performance in front of unsuspecting ears.
But as much as you think you’re enjoying it, the Berklee crowd is enjoying it more. A baseline Berklee audience is already vigorous, and things often turn delightfully rowdy. It’s a function of their finely tuned ears; they hoot and holler not just for conventionally crowd-pleasing vocal acrobatics but clever lyrical one-liners. Tight harmonies get stank faces, while affecting ballads draw soft exhaled wows. With two or three songs remaining, the lead artist cedes the spotlight to their band members — typically, friends who’ve been exchanging grins all set — and each proceeds to rip off a casually incredible solo.
Without a backstage for performers to exit to or ushers to clear the crowd, everyone hangs around. It’s time for the post-show congratulations line. Friends encircle the night’s stars, pouring out bubbled-up pride. The performers burst with affection; whenever I’ve waited my turn to compliment someone I don’t know, they ask my name, as moved by my presence as I was by their art. I leave every show convinced each person there came for the purest of reasons: they love music.
For over two years, I’ve found a stranger to talk to every day. As it stands, no conversation has gotten me more bang for my buck than the one I had on February 2nd, 2024.
That day, I met two Berklee songwriting students.
As a teenage pop music obsessive, I looked forward to the weekly Billboard Hot 100 refresh more than any party and made the VMAs appointment viewing in our house, but gracing a stage was out of the question. Dad wasn’t pushy about my hobbies despite being an all-state violinist; he knew performing was several bridges too far for a kid rattled by any loud noise imaginable. None of my high school friends could claim they’d written a song or played in a band.
Suddenly, I was chatting with the magic-makers. Inspired and fascinated as we wrapped up our conversation, I promised I’d come watch them play. Eight days later, there I was, the interloper in a sea of lyric writing students. Yet the room held no skepticism, only gratitude someone was sharing the moment with them. It took under ten minutes of gorgeous acoustic melodies to make up my mind: I had to come back.
The next week there was another gig, and I mingled with a little extra intention. Friendly chats with other artists led to Instagram follows, which led to knowing about their shows. I could pencil in three things whenever I made my way to campus: immense talent, fascinating people, and faces I recognized. Rinse and repeat.
See, Berklee’s not actually that small of a school, but you’re never more than two degrees of separation from anyone. Whether the culprit was ear training class or an ensemble, name-dropping the songwriters I’d met inevitably rang a bell with whoever I spoke to. Two factors reinforce this tight-knit atmosphere: most Berklee shows feature multiple acts, and artists generally play with a band even if they’re billed solo. Minutes after one band finishes, they’re in the front row hyping up the next act. It’s beautiful.
Soon my calendar filled with shows, on and off campus. Five by the end of the school year, seven more in the fall. I became a regular at a few microvenues close enough to Berklee that shows featuring students boast all the characteristics of on-campus gigs. Still more were house shows; not the exposed-pipe basement affairs you might be picturing, but cozy jams in nondescript living rooms. When one friend played her first-ever solo gig a four-hour train ride away, I made the trip — and realized that for as aurally riveting as these performances were, they were rapidly taking on deeper meaning.
One time during my preteen years, my parents took me to a Boston Bruins hockey game. It was a fun night, but we were no diehards. I didn’t shoot pucks growing up, have any hockey-crazed family members, or fully understand the rules. It was a blowout; my only vivid memory is the crowd’s mock cheer for the B’s mercifully clearing the puck from their own end of the ice.
Many years later, I met a college hockey player through my project. When we bumped into each other at a coffee shop, I eagerly inquired about her next home game. How cool it would be to see her in action! On gameday my eyes tracked the puck everywhere; I tensed up and inched forward as she battled for possession, even sighing in irritation after a golden scoring chance fell by the wayside.
It’s a lesson my adventures have driven home time and again: life is richer when you’re rooting for people rather than just observing them. I’d bet you crave this feeling instinctively. Why else do Cinderella teams capture the masses’ hearts every March Madness? The outpouring of love for Ke Huy Quan reviving his career to win an Oscar, the donations for the earnest but flailing donut shop on everyone’s For You page — they’re different flavors of that same impulse. Meeting people at Berklee convinced me: the most rewarding way to grow invested in something is to befriend the people doing it.
I can’t overstate how awesome it is to show up at a concert and see my friend on stage. I’ve never felt anything like it. Emotions hit in extra-strong doses: joy, awe, the type of pride that can only be expressed with an ear-shattering whoop (an experience I assumed was reserved for sideline moms). It’s hard to imagine feeling more alive.
Shamelessness. In my head, the dictionary entry comes with an image. A balmy Maine summer evening; an idyllic outdoor concert venue; a standing section where pixie cuts outnumber men. And a 62-year-old primary care physician who just really, really likes Maggie Rogers.
That man is my father.
Everything he’s fond of, he enjoys full-throatedly, no matter where he is and who he’s around. He’ll matter-of-factly journey four hours each way for a part his old Beemer needs and geek out about new medical findings even if he holds the only STEM degree at the dinner table. Reflecting on the people I’ve met, an unmissable pattern emerges: the most shameless are also the happiest.
My Berklee friends are beautifully shameless. They toss around theory-nerd terms — chromatic, modulation — unapologetically; use one yourself, and you’ll sense antennae perk up. They perform to rooms of twenty as if there were two thousand.
Each expresses themselves so readily, I’d never confuse one for another. There’s Lucia, a disarmingly playful performer whose conversational lyrics seem to wink at you; Trinity, who can move from desperate wail to intimate whisper in seconds; Cordelia, whose easygoing grooves activate rhythmic impulses in my body I didn’t know existed.
Their clear-as-day individuality forced me to sit with an uncomfortable fact: I’d long hesitated to embrace my own personality. I directed my teenage Katy Perry fandom online to avoid inevitable double takes at the cafeteria. Today I play New England tour guide for friends and strangers alike, but my Californian floormates in college didn’t get passionate lectures about candlepin bowling. In childhood I clammed up in public, fear of embarrassment repressing the very curiosity that would later power my stranger-meeting exploits.
Live your truth! Find your authentic self! Surrounding myself with shameless friends made those interminable self-help cliches resonate. When the urge to express myself hits, I think of how decisively they’d act on it, from the unabashedly cheesy skits they design for live shows to the ear-splitting screams they let out in support of their friends. These days, I compliment more coffee-shop neighbors’ shirts and stickers; go to events I have no connection to just because I’m curious; and, of course, sing louder in the car.
Her anxious sighs were unmistakable, even through blue bubbles.
My mom’s patience was whittling away. Each week she stuffed my inbox with a new batch of listings she’d scoured the internet for: you should send in an application, she’d nudge, like a secret alarm back home would go off if I didn’t. As deadlines inched closer, the urgency we both expected never came.
She wasn’t used to this. Her straight-A son, indifferent to his future?
Internship season had come around again. I was a junior now; no more dawdling. Hordes of fellow economics students were angling for spots at brand-name financial firms, and I was reluctant to join them. Even if my unremarkable application worked magic on a hiring manager, I’d come no closer to answering a question weightier than any summer stint: what did I want out of life? It sure wasn’t being quoted in CNBC as an equity analyst.
Despite growing up in the final boss of college towns, the problem wasn’t others’ expectations; Dad swore he’d die happy if I ended up a San Diego surf bum, provided that’s truly where my heart lay. School counselors went great lengths to emphasize the futility of chasing Ivy League aura. Why couldn’t I take their messages to heart?
Well, words matter, but so does culture, and no influence proved more potent than what I saw with my own eyes. Everyone I felt comfortable modeling myself after had their life treadmill on the same setting: four-year degree, uncontroversial job, sprint to a metropolis. I hadn’t given my imagination permission to construct a different future. Grudgingly, I was barreling toward sixty-hour weeks in a cavernous financial district; to convince myself it would happen, I flailed when that vision felt threatened. This took the form of histrionic texts to my poor mother that are, frankly, shocking to read. “I’m just not going to be able to crank out A’s in this major,” I vented a few weeks into sophomore year, “even though it happens to be the major that everybody takes. I’m just that stupid. Sorry!”
Making friends at Berklee has been the biggest breath of fresh air. Senior associate and vice president are meaningless phrases to them. Now, there’s no sugarcoating the modest incomes they’re likely to make in their initial postgrad years. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to find a hungrier group of people. This isn’t the unctuous hunger of Shark Tank hucksters — you know, the I’M GRINDING HARDER THAN YOU hustle-culture types. Instead, these artists are determined to build lives around what they love, not the other way around.
Whenever I’ve confided to them that one day, I’d love to try my hand at writing a song, their effusive reactions leave me convinced: despite whatever industry messiness that surely exists, they cherish their lives. When they take stock of things in the far future, very few will regret diving headlong into music. It’s night and day with the many directionless twentysomethings I meet and their futile efforts to find purpose while climbing corporate ladders. Never before have I spent so much time around people this true to themselves. I’ve finally realized: I can be like that, too.
“All of a sudden we get that F … we’re anticipating something because it’s such a huge texture change, and then we’re getting a walkdown. That kind of stuff makes minor key songs moodier, gives it attitude, and keeps it from being just dark.”
It’s past 10 p.m. on a recent weeknight. My singer-songwriter friends Claire and Preston have opened their apartment to me. We sit in their bedroom, notes in tow, professional-grade speakers keeping us company. Right now, this prechorus is the only thing on our minds.
There are many ways my Berklee friendships have extended beyond gigs. I’ve celebrated birthdays, competed valiantly at game nights, and even played fly-on-the-wall for a studio session that felt like an adult field trip. But album club takes the cake.
Long frustrated with how few full albums I listen to, some months back I pitched the idea: like a book club, but for albums! Claire and Preston were on board. Since then, we’ve made a ritual of breaking down chord progressions and questionable lyrical choices. At each club meeting we go song by song down a tracklist; when someone wants to discuss a specific moment, we’ll listen to it out loud — and here’s the coolest part — before Preston slides the piano out and plays the chords in question. Their observations are sharp. Once, Claire noted a track I found hypnotizing had melodies resembling a religious hymn; soon after, a song on the radio gripped me and I instantly recognized why. I fastidiously jot down their colorful, precise descriptions (“beefy drums”) and play along as they guess whether instruments were pre-recorded or live. With their ears, even clunkers are entertaining. (“Her voice is like swimming in syrup,” reads one note about a trendy pop star who will remain nameless.) Album club is some of the most fun I’ve had in years.
None of this could’ve happened if the Berklee crowd wasn’t so open. I never imagined being welcomed into such a close-knit community. Usually, when I meet people in niche circles, true friendship is elusive; no matter how well you get along, you’re always an outsider. Berklee was different. Instead of look, but don’t touch, I heard come stay a while! They regard music as both sacred and universal. Who are we, they say, to deny anyone such an essential human experience?
I’ve been bringing my Berklee friends up a lot lately. Am I talking about the strangers project? Their friendships are a perfect example of why I love it. Getting out of my comfort zone? That first show was as starkly as I’ve ever stood out in a room. Encouraging someone to embrace their creative reflex? I know just the people to take inspiration from. Favorite recent concerts? Well, that’s an easy one.
I owe many of the widest smiles and tightest hugs from my last year of life to that fateful conversation last February. My Berklee friends’ impact on me stretches far beyond contributing greatly to my Spotify playlists and replacing would-be sleepy weeknights with raucous celebrations. Indeed, their example has guided me through embracing my individuality and ultimately rethinking the narrower worldview that held me back. Of all my friendships, theirs feel among the most impactful — and the most improbable.
So when I’m embracing one of them after another killer set, and they thank me profusely for coming, all I can think is:
How could I not?
Dedicated to the Berklee class of 2025. You have given me more than I could ever give you.
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