He pulled up the Mike Verta "Structure Masterclass" he’d downloaded months ago.

"Music isn't about notes," Verta’s voice crackled through the monitors, "it’s about the manipulation of expectation. If you don't know where the climax is, neither does your audience."

The air in the studio was thick with the scent of ozone and expensive mahogany. Silas, a composer whose scores were often described as "polite," stared at the blinking cursor of his DAW. He had the melody—a soaring, lonely cello line—but the rest of his composition felt like a pile of beautiful bricks that refused to become a house.