In the middle of a hot July afternoon, when the stifling air came with rippling waves of heat, I became a thief of some sort—a thief of music.

For the first time, I had created an original piano arrangement of one of my favorite songs. Not once had I looked for the help of premade sheet music or video tutorials on YouTube. Using only my ears and iPod, I had transformed a mix of intermingling sounds and intricate melodies into the tones of a single instrument; I had created complex harmonies and voices into something I could perform with only two hands. No help, no guide: I had done it on my own.

I’ve been a pianist since before my hands were big enough to reach an octave: with a musician and composer for a father, I was all but born on the piano bench. For many years, my musical identity was defined by the notes that others had written in centuries past: elegant lines of neatly printed notes stamped across sheet music became the script I was obligated to perform. I valued playing classical music—adored it, even—but such performances felt inherently shallow, lacking in depth and details because I had nothing of my own to contribute to the masterful compositions of Bach or Rachmaninov.

This was why, when I added the finishing touches to my piano version of a modern alt-rock song, my pride was all-consuming and glorious: this arrangement was mine. What I’d done seemed magical: an ability to take what had already existed—to “steal” a song from my favorite band—and to change it into something different and all my own. I was a thief, but I was also an artist.

In music, as in other aspects of life, I believe that true originality rarely exists. Almost everything has, in one form or another, been done before. The most passionate romance novel may very well be a slightly changed version of a play by Shakespeare, which in turn is borrowed from the playwrights of Ancient Greece: same themes, different characters, different circumstances. But, the novel is no less deserving of praise just because its uniqueness is compromised. Adaptation is not a synonym for failure.

The gift of creativity is the ability to do what I did on the piano: to find something beautiful, to analyze and twist it and lose yourself in the mystery of its composition, and then to make it new. Such an act is not copying; it is finding inspiration and having the strength and the innovation to use it as fuel for your own masterpiece. The world is nothing more than disparate collections of preexisting parts—scattered and often lost in the chaos of everyday life. I believe it is my job, as an artist, to rearrange this world into what I envision it to be.

I refuse to live as if I were trapped within the walls of a museum: looking but never touching, afraid to ruin the so-called perfection of the artifacts inside. Therefore, I will embrace my ability to be a thief, because if I don’t steal what the world has to offer, I’ll never have the tools to share with others a creation of my own.

My life is my own arrangement, and because of that, anything is possible.