THE COMPUTER AS THE COMPOSER’S ELIXIR

Abstract

The music composer like other people involved in different areas of human creativity, experiences what may be referred to as ‘work-stress’.  This stress is revealed when one takes a cursory look at music history. A study of the methods employed by past composers buttresses the fact that in order to capture a musical idea, the composer had to scribble on paper using available materials which included ink and bird’s feather. A few of them had to tear up their manuscripts a couple of times as an expression of dissatisfaction and in an attempt to rewrite their works. Studies also revealed that moonlight was used as a source of power at night to provide the needed light for the composer. The effort at writing and rewriting musical notes coupled with poor lighting could only be viewed as a composer’s nightmare. The absence of a friendly environment and the use of crude materials severely hampered the musical output of composers. In contrast, the innovation and advancement of computer technology coupled with the development of music software in the past few years has impacted positively to bring relief to the work of music composers. As a result, the computer has been described as a wonderful device which has proved to be of great assistance to the composer. This paper sees the computer as the composer’s elixir, which has not only afforded the composer a veritable tool for prolific output but has also become a valuable storage facility protected from the damaging effects of rodents and rats. The computer barring further innovative technological advancement has become a sine-qua-non to the modern day music composer who has to willy-nilly get acquainted with it.