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Joined: Jan 2009
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How do composers get their music down on paper in this digital age. Do people still use a regular piano and a piece of staff paper?
Does everyone use a digital keyboard hooked up to a computer now?
If I have a 13 year old interested in composing, what does he need to make it easier for him?
Dee
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 2,154
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You can never go wrong with pencil and paper. I would advise him to use pencil/paper to start. It's the easiest way to get your ideas down quickly. Also, I personally find it to be a good exercise to do it by hand - something about putting pencil to paper really helps to cement musical ideas in a way that computer-assisted notation doesn't.
If your 13 year old gets to the point where they are serious about composition, then yes, you will eventually want to invest in some software and a keyboard/digitial piano to assist in the compositional process, but don't feel like you need to rush out and get something right away - let him cut his teeth with pencil and paper and see where it goes from there...
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Joined: Feb 2005
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Ear training, that's what any budding composer needs. If I had it to do over I think I would join a children's chorus. They'll learn solfegge there and that will begin the process of ear training. Composing is basically musical dictation from one's imagination. The voice is the most personal of musical instruments, training the mind attached to it also trains the ear.
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Joined: Apr 2006
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I agree with 8ude. Pencil and manuscript is the way to go. Keep him awat from the computer and let him train himself to compose by ear as much as possible. Using a Piano is perfectly OK but putting the ideas on paper will allow him to use musical notation to his advantage. NEVER underestimate the value of good notational skills. Oh and composition isn't easy and he shouldn't be taught so. He should be taught to think methodically and slowly. But is fun too
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Joined: Mar 2009
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How do composers get their music down on paper in this digital age. Do people still use a regular piano and a piece of staff paper?
Does everyone use a digital keyboard hooked up to a computer now?
If I have a 13 year old interested in composing, what does he need to make it easier for him?
Dee A sunburst Stratocaster! and a Marshall amplifier stack. Seriously I think much composing is done on pencil and paper, but it is interesting to do it at a keyboard connected to a computer that can record.
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Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 13,837
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
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Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
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NEVER underestimate the value of good notational skills.
I wanted to highlight the importance of this. I play quite a bit of new music by students or recent composition graduates, and I am consistently amazed at just how bad their notational skills are. I will never understand why some composers, who presumably want to communicate musical ideas to others, completely ignore quality notation and serve up incomplete drafts made with Finale's default settings or, worse yet, a bad MP3 file of midi playback. As a performer, I am quick to adopt the attitude that if a composer expects me to spend hours preparing a quality performance of their work, then I have every right to expect them to have spent hours preparing a quality score.
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt) www.pianoped.comwww.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed
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Joined: Sep 2008
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Start with pencil and paper. That's how I started. I actually find it fun. Now I use the speed tool (Finale 2009) and only hand write when I feel like it.
Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons.
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Joined: Nov 2008
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I use the following things when composing: ears, manuscript paper, pen/pencil, piano, and colourful vocabulary.
Yamaha U3 | Currently working on: Various Haydn Sonatas/Caténaires by Elliott Carter/Lots of Feldman
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:34 PM
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Piano
by Gino2 - 04/17/24 02:23 PM
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