Not in any meaningful sense. "Composer" as a separate profession is a purely Western institution directly tied to the development of music notation.Composers who don't write is a longer tradition than those who do.
If it is improvised, it is not composed. Period. If it is collaborative, it is not a finished composition until it is either recorded or written down. Recording was not an option until about 90 years ago; written music goes back more than a millennium.In some composition -- especially improvisatory or collaborative forms in jazz and pop respectively -- writing is destructive to the process, and mostly done by transcription after the composition is long finished.
Can one compose without "freezing" the result somehow? Yes, certainly (Balinese gamelan pieces come immediately to mind), but the whole thing then has to be kept in one's head, which is why all non-notated composition, I think without exception, has been the province of people who primarily are performers: it is much easier to remember a piece when you can play it, just as music was an aid to the remembering of epic poetry in the ancient world.
If somebody wants to set themselves up as a composer (as opposed to, say, a singer-songwriter), but nonetheless has to farm out the notation of their works to someone else, I think that that someone has a legitimate grumble.
--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://www.kallistimusic.com
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