head into music notation, you may not need all of the automatic help that
you get from a computer during the early, creative phases of your composi-
tion. You might still want the power of making your work legible enough for
anyone to read, and you may want to publish your work, so the computer will
come in handy later — but there is something freeing about working with
simple, primitive tools. The process of writing becomes more direct without
the distractions of a computer environment to confront you.Some composers feel more comfortable with the light reflecting off of a piece
of paper than by the light transmitted through a computer monitor. You may
also find it easier to navigate through a pile of papers than click through the
pages onscreen.Few things in life are more rewarding than sitting out on your porch on a
sunny spring day with a book of staff paper and a pencil, writing down what-
ever comes to your imagination. Try it.File Management ............................................................................................
One of the dangers of working solely in the computer realm is that important
pieces of music might get lost if you aren’t careful with file management.
Sometimes it is hard to say which pieces of music are going to end up being
important ones, so we offer some tips here about file management.To start with, let’s define file managementas the organization and logical
arrangement of hierarchical structure in various data storage media, such as
hard drives, CDs and DVDs, file folders, and files used for your work. More
simply: It’s where you keep stuff in your computer.It is a good idea to keep all your computer applications on your boot drive,
but storing your music on the same drive can end up being a very bad idea.
Fragmentation can occur or you could just run out of space. Moreover, if the
drive crashes (which it will, sooner or later) you could easily reinstall your
applications, but your work could be lost forever. To prevent this from hap-
pening, you should probably get an extra, external hard drive and dedicate it
to your saved music files. They are not so expensive anymore; you can proba-
bly find a perfectly good one for $75 or so.Start by creating a folder on your drive called My Compositions, or some-
thing like that, and create organizational folders within that folder. They
could be named for the different styles of music you are working with: Rock,
Jazz, and so on. Or you could organize your work using folder names like
Jingles, Film Scores, and Songs.26 Part I: Basics and Rhythm