In a message dated 2/4/02 8:54:27 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >I can only imagine that it would be a great bother having to take the time to >write down words and notes as I went along...while having a song raging >in my head. I may want nothing more than to play it...sing it..feel it.
The only thing that matters is the inspiration of the music that results, not the path taken. Mozart wrote on paper away from an instrument; it was no great bother for him because music is in the head, not in the fingers. That's how Beethoven could write after going deaf, because the music was inside his head. They both were able to "play it ... sing it ... feel it" no less fully. I write at the piano, without paper at first, until the song has a clear shape in my head, then I commit to paper in order to refine and polish, and so that others may read it quickly in order to play it. I "play it ... sing it ... feel it" no less fully. Is it a great bother to write or type words when one is communicating via wri tten word? No, for most of us it's second nature, we don't even think about it (although often we should). For folks who have learned to write music on paper it's the same -- it's fluent and doesn't impede creativity at all. Being musically literate also means having access to the inner workings of whole worlds of great ideas, just as being literate in language does. I think there is a misperception that the intellect and left-brained activity are antithetical to art. Nothing could be further from the truth ... there is great magic in the mind and when applied to the song of the heart, so to speak, great art is possible. It's a kind of romantic myth to think that art is the result only of feeling. Finally, I really don't have any dogmatic notion that everyone *must* learn to read and write music ... like I said, whatever works for the best music possible. My only peeve is with the idea that literacy in music somehow detracts from its truth. -Fred
