Leaderboard

Writing any harp music that uses the pinky will be perceived as amateurish. Just that simple. (Ask any harpist.)

Well, fair enough if you never intend to use real instruments, but it's disappointing that you've decided to pick yourself up and carry on walking having stumbled across a brilliant opportunity to increase your knowledge and skills in using the orchestra. If something sounds right, then it is 'done properly'. We can suggest repertoire examples and guidelines for treating any particular problem but after that it is the composer's choice how to proceed. Please eliminate, by extreme force if neccessary, any notion you may have that us 'classically trained' musicians have a Big Book of How to Do Things the Good Ol' Fashioned Right Way whose sacred and indisputable text we regard as law during acts of creation. You will be judged for not doing thing properly only if what you write sounds naff. Please could this work ethic extend to spelling and grammar?

You'll want to read this then: http://ostimusic.com/blog/music-publishing/

Of which Bach, Prokofiev, Bartok and Lutoslawski are shining examples. As are Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Stravinsky and Messiaen :P . Never said the opposite - just that those three were already discussed in the previous post. Which is just another wording for being regarded among the top achievers in music (whatever the hell that means :thumbsup: )... only that not as widely (yet).

Actually there were several dedicated scientists who did stumble onto some of Newton's discoveries at the same time as him and there were many bitter disputes between Newton and others about who deserved to be credited for them. The most famous is probably the one with Leibniz over who invented calculus or the one with Hooke over the inverse square law that is central to his law of universal gravitation. The point being that even if Newton was rightfully credited for these inventions, there were certainly scientists biting at his heels who would've published the same things anyway. Most innovations are made out of necessity rather than genius. Just because somebody is the first to come up with something doesn't mean that without them, nobody would ever come up with it. On the subject of talent, I personally believe that the only true talent is the ability to delay gratification. I think some people have that and some just don't and it is difficult to develop it if you don't already have it. I believe that would explain why so many of the greatest achievers in history have been polymaths rather than just experts in one field. It is because their talent lies in their discipline and ability to learn, regardless of subject. That's just my opinion though.