do any of you enter composition contests?

my child composes music on our iMac, using her Casio keyboard and GarageBand. her songs sound pretty good. i know the tools make it real easy for kids to write songs now too.

she wants to enter her song in a kid's composition contest, but a real life composer told her that it could not win a contest because it had too many "impossible rhythms," whatever that means. i think the composer meant to say that the song is too difficult to be played in real life by real musicians using real instruments. for instance, a real live flute can't play 1/64th notes, which were in her composition.

to compose "good music," does it have to be written so real life instruments can play it, or is a computer generated song good enough, just because it sounds great? i'm not even sure if i'm asking this question right either. thanks.

It is good that you had a real composer look at your daughter's work. It's also good that you're supportive of her composing efforts. Yes, software makes composing easier, but it's a way to develop the creative mind and creative outlet. That's all the good news I have for you.

Computers can indeed play music, but no one will pay to hear a computer. People pay to hear humans play music therefore it's important that the music be playable. I've been in your daughter's position and one of my current projects is to take the pieces I wrote way back when and rearrange them to be played at the piano by me. Since I'm not a remarkably talented performer that means things need to be simplified, sometimes a lot. What I find is that most of those really difficult things I wrote were because I was writing for a computer and in reality people can't hear that level of complexity. Simplifying the music makes it playable and when real people play it it has things the computer cannot impart, emotion, flexible rhythm, feeling, rubato, whatever you want to call it. It sounds better when played by people, even mediocre players like me.

My suggestion would be for your daughter to work at becoming proficient at one instrument, my preference would be piano. With piano you get the full range of hearing and everything is black and white in front of you. You miss out on issues of sustain and tuning (and breathing) so some vocal work would also be a good thing. Between piano and singing you many of the significant issues musicians face (except those unique to string instruments). Playing and performing as a pianist and vocalist will inform her composing efforts. When her composing efforts are better informed she'll be more successful in composing competitions.