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Looking at Peters original post, he wonders if focusing on composition work is narcissistic. I don't think so--at all. When I am working I need quiet and 100% of my bandwidth to do work. Thats how it is, and I suspect thats how it is with many. Writing music is hard. Being ultra focused is just part of this, as is any pursuit of such complexity. It certainly isn't clinical narcissism, and anyone labelling a person so dedicated to their craft/job/pusuit is ignoring what is involved. And nothing of great value can be created in this world without that kind of focus----art, music, engineering, architecture, scientific pursuits....

Unable to sleep once again, this early morning I have managed to compose a Late Romantic-style overture for string orchestra. This piece's overall character stems from the metaphor of a harsh storm passing, as hinted by the German title shown in the score: Der abflauende Sturm. Albeit short, compared to my usual standards it is both quite emotional and reflective simultaneously as I tried to pour my feelings on the current state of affairs in my life into music, and I must say, in terms of either harmonic variety and dynamic expression, I think it turned out better than I could have ever imagined, especially considering the fact this work and its idiosyncrasies are pretty far removed from my usual compositional style. Enjoy! YouTube video link:

I'm curious to know who made that comment. I can't really think of anything that you can't do these days, at least through manual adjustment. Maybe if you are doing really funky contemporary scores that deviate from standard sheet music styles, but that's not going to be a problem for most people. Then again, I'm not a publisher or a professor, and they are allowed to have a standard program that they prefer to receive files in to make their lives easier for marking up scores, editing, etc. Sometimes something is the standard just because at some point it was the most commonly used, and it's annoying to switch between different programs all the time which aren't compatible with each other, not because one is actually better. That said, I'm annoyed at Musescore every time they come out with an update and they move all the features around so I have to relearn where to find things.