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Hello, I thought I would share this song I wrote from the new musical, Jesse James: DEAD OR ALIVE. The show is based on the life of the Western outlaw Jesse James. The music has a rock/Americana style so I thought this might be the best area to post. Thank you for listening! https://soundcloud.com/emlaproductions/ride-on-from-jesse-james-dead

Hi all, After my secondary school I want to study either Classical Saxophone or Composition. When I am chatting with Composition professors, it seems to me that they prefer composing on paper and then they notate in a notation program. I have tried it several times to compose on paper, but I find it really hard. Not because I don't know what the music will really sound like, but because I make so many notation mistakes. Actually, when writing music on paper, my scores look like Beethoven's (see picture) and I cannot even read in myself. . . My question: ''Do you compose your music first on paper and then in a notation program? Or do you directly notate in a program, such as Sibelius or MuseScore? Why?'' I think the ''Why'' is the most important part of the question. Please let me know your opinions, experiences etc. Kind regards, Maarten

Long live the computer!

My handwriting is so bad that it makes a doctor's scrawl legible. If I scored anything by hand it would be a cross between Klingon and Elvish. For the sake of my sanity and world sanity I vow to be a software composer, forever, and always.

Stravinsky always wrote at the piano. I like to think of digital audio as 21st century piano.

Nice work, and the kids were definitely little Broadway troopers.

I sketch themes and important harmonic progressions on paper when I'm away from my notation software (e.g. when stuff comes to me while at work) but 95% of the time, I compose directly into notation software. If it weren't for notation software, there is no way I could compose music, at least of the same quality of what I do now.