It is lunch, and while everyone is rushing out of their classrooms, eager to rendezvous with friends, one student lurks behind, sliding into the music room alone to light up the small piano room with the sounds of emotion.
Paul Krayniy, a junior at Carmel High School, has been playing piano for eight years and attended singing camp over the summer.
“It’s the only thing that makes me feel good inside,” Krayniy says. “It lets me express myself.”
Recently, Krayniy has been writing music in his spare time and is now working towards recording and producing his work with his singing partner, junior Kassidy Cosmero.
“I knew she was good, and if I was going to partner with someone I wanted it to be with someone who was really good,” Krayniy says, “because I want to get my music out there.”
When he writes music, the performer first plays a tune on the piano to see if it sounds good; if it does, he then goes back and adds lyrics to it. The songwriter has been in the music room every day at lunch playing the piano and writing lyrics to express himself.
“I haven’t really written down any personal emotions,” Krayniy says, “but love seems to be a usual theme in songs, so I try to copy that and incorporate it into a song because I, myself, have no idea.”
The pianist is in the process of writing a new song titled “Maybe All We Are Is Misfits.” The inspiration for the song is to illuminate how everyone cares too much about what others perceive, to encourage people to let go and to not care as much about what people think.
As of now, the junior has written two songs: one is a combination of Cosmero’s and his own skill, while the other is a solo love song, sung and written entirely on his own.
“I really hope Paul shows off his talent soon,” Cosmero says, “because he will go far.”
Joe Johnsson, a junior at CHS, is planning on assisting Krayniy and Cosmero with recording their music. After the recording is complete, junior Bryce James—another talented student at CHS—is going to be producing Krayniy’s music.
“The way he writes music is certainly an ability that I don’t have,” says Johnsson, who records Krayniy’s music, “and I think that if he takes more time to sit down and develop he can write even better songs, which is a really amazing thing because songwriting doesn’t come easy.”
There is no particular music genre that the songwriter has in mind, but Krayniy decided to make his first song pop, for he says it is the kind of music that is getting played most frequently.
“It’s one of my dreams to make it into the music industry, to eventually make it big and get my music out there,” Krayniy says. “I just hope everyone enjoys it as much as I enjoy writing it.”
As of now, Krayniy is uncertain whether he is going to pursue music in college, as it is an extremely difficult industry to get into, but he will keep playing for fun depending on what he decides to do. Eventually, he does hope to write and record a full album someday.
-Asha Johnston
