From the time of the Beatles in the 1960’s onward, (a very important era of time for HardyHouse Music by the way!) composing music and writing it down has really changed. When we once used manuscript paper with pen or pencil and took our chances on doing the best we could with our available penmanship and handwriting skills, we now have the resources of computers and music notation software programs. The radical change in how many composers now work is extraordinary. With the aid of digital instruments and computers we have at our ‘fingertips’ (ears) the instantaneous feedback of hearing what we are ‘hearing’ in our musical heads and hearts. Composers can now ‘write’ their music right into the computer file; edit and arrange exactly what they want in all it’s glory and detail and print it out to start playing from. For a musician/composer that is unaware of the technology that exists today, to see the reality of this for the first time is always a sight to behold! (“Wow! Imagine what Mozart could’ve done with this!” You don’t know how many times we’ve heard something like this!) Utilizing such features as cut and paste; entire sections of music can be pasted in new parts of the music; transposed up or down…play your guitar and the tones are notated into the computer… the possibilities are overwhelming and truly incredible.

Add to this the innovations in digital instrument technology and the sounds we are now getting from our digital pianos and keyboards and the result is stunning! What we once had to put up with in ‘cheesy’ violin or string sounds and the like are now as authentic as can be heard. Even to the point that it is virtually indistinguishable to tell the difference between them. Why we even now can configure ‘human playback’ settings that give the even more realistic human touch to our music! It’s a brave new world out there!

It is very much as T. Machover said in discussing his thoughts on computer music composition:

“We are at the frontiers of a new era in music, one that will offer fresh and exciting answers to fundamental questions of language and organization, propose a clearer role for music in the social structure and a surer form of communication to a public, and integrate and express that which is most important about life as it is now and how it should or could be in future generations. We are only at the beginning of this road, so it is above all a time for composers to maintain certain humility at the immensity of the task to be done. We must realize the need for common effort but simultaneously keep the courage and vision necessary to trust our own judgments, thoughts, feelings, and, above all, ears, and do what real composers have always done: stop talking and write music!”

"What instrument do you play?

"The computer."

"No, seriously, what do you play?"