<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>As a composer and arranger of, ahem, many years, and as a teacher of composition, please allow me to make some observations and venture an opinion or 3.</div><div><br></div><div>* When I compose I prefer to work at a "real" instrument with paper (!) and pencil (!) (and eraser!). These days I will get to a first draft stage and then enter what I have into Finale. By real instrument I usually mean piano, but it can be guitar (my first instrument), and what I use depends on the genre of music I am writing.</div><div><br></div><div>* I find I can <i>not</i> compose using an electronic keyboard (digital piano, etc.) under any circumstances. I did it once and while the music I wrote is "okay" to my ears it sounds stilted.</div><div><br></div><div>* I <i>have</i> composed directly into Finale on occasion but always with a clear idea of the music in my head at the time. And this is only a recent phenomenon.</div><div><br></div><div>* I require my beginning composition students to write their first drafts in pencil on paper. I suggest but do not demand they do so at the piano though.</div><div><br></div><div>To me it is not so much the use of this or that instrument but the act of making a physical connection to the music one is writing. It helps somehow to clarify thought and to improve one's ability to critique one's own work on progress.</div><div><br>----------<div>Steven L. Rosenhaus</div><div><a href="mailto:srosenhaus@earthlink.net">srosenhaus@earthlink.net</a></div></div><div><br>On May 7, 2014, at 4:39 PM, Paul Lombardi <<a href="mailto:lombardi@unm.edu">lombardi@unm.edu</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Dear Felicia,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I agree with you. I find that when people (students as well as composers with degrees) write directly into notation software, the results are often unmusical,
awkward, or limited in musical depth. </span></p></div></div></blockquote></body></html>