The weird trend that I'm seeing in a lot of the shareware software is that
it's using software programming methods instead of music composition
methods, e.g., object-oriented programming of MUSIC. Computer-aided
composition (i.e, the computer does some of the thinking for you). Writing
music in Java.
What the heck is the world coming to?
Actually, Howard Goodall in his "Big Bangs" episode about the history of
music notation warned against the problem inherent with the current
generation of composers only ever learning to compose on a computer. He
demonstrated by playing a piece of music in (on a keyboard) into a
computer notation program that printed out exactly what he played - which
was literally correct, but an absolute mess when you looked at it.
Goodall then edited the music (using the software) to show how it *should*
look - at least to the eye of the composer who learned to compose "the old
fashioned way". The risk these days is that young composers who never
learn "the old fashioned" way will think the mess that the composition
software automatically generates from what they play into the keyboard is
how sheet music is supposed to look!
And then, a question I always ask about EVERYTHING I do on my computer:
Could I do the same thing if the power failed for days on end, or if I
were stranded in the Alaskan tundra with nothing but a notebook and
several pencils. IF I don't know how to use those pencils - or how to
conceptualise things in a way that I can write them out by hand (or add
them up without a calculator), I'm going to be pretty darned LOST, aren't
I. I'm no Luddite - but I do think that absolute reliance on computers to
the extent that we are unable to do without them is truly dangerous.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths.
- Proverbs 3:6
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