JStone

Not necessarily one of my favorite pieces, but the Ives Piano Trio movement TSIAJ (This Scherzo is a Joke) is loaded with humor. There seem to be melodies tripping over each other in an attempt to get out of the way of the music. Ives music often makes me chuckle and think, how did he ever come up with that.

I think Sonar, ProTools and Cubase are the three leading programs. Sonar and Cubase have versions for users that don't need all the bells and whistles for less. You'll get people that are very vocal about the "professional-ness" of each of these, especially Protools, but I think all are very capable. I'm a Sonar user, but I've never used the others.

For sound cards I use the M-Audio 192 and it's been great. Clean sound, no driver issues, and MIDI in/out. I use it with Sonar and have had no issues although I will say I'm using 32 bit XP> I've heard that there may be some issues with 64 bit, but I think that's just about everyone. I'm holding off on 64 bit till it's a bit more settled down, I just don't feel like spending a lot of time messing with drivers to get things working. FYI quick search on the M-Audio 192 had it listed for US $179, but probably could find it cheaper with some searching.

It seems that our current era of music leaves us without many of the conventions that previous eras worked with and that leaves me, and I suspect others, spending time trying to understand how composition today fits into the musical tradition of the last 500 years or so. In a way it may have been easier, philosophically speaking, to compose in an era where there was a more structured expectation of music. Many of today

I always had mixed feeling about Stockhausen, I always enjoyed studying and discussing his work but it usually doesn't do much for me when I listen to it. Any person that contributes that much to the musical world will be missed though.

I bought a Kurzweil when I set up my studio and I really wish I had bought a controller and focused more of software. Of course, it depends what you want to do, but the flexibility of software is great. With hardware you will essentially have the same piece of gear forever but with software there are always new upgrades and features. You can always load the software in a laptop if you want to move around.

It took some getting used to at first, but now I really like working in the piano roll view. The main thing I regret about not having a notation program is the ability to create scores, but I'm not sure anything short of Sibelius or Finale would do what I want and I don't know if I'm ready to make that investment just for scores. I've decided to focus on electronic realizations for now.

I tried several things to get a readable score and none of them worked. Sonar makes a terrible score and I tried exporting MIDI into Finale Notepad and it was better but still not really readable. So here is the MIDI file and maybe you can look at it in Piano Roll View or maybe you'll have better software to make a score. http://jstonemusic.net/music/ZionMIDI.mid

This is a work based on my impressions of a part of Zion National Park. There is an area where the Zion canyon progressively becomes narrower and narrower ending up at a place where only the Zion river separates the walls of the canyon. http://www.zionnational-park.com/images/album2/images/zion-national-park-zp_jpg.jpg http://www.zionnational-park.com/images/album2/images/zion-national-park-j_jpg.jpg I

That works for me, I wouldn't have considered posting a percussion piece in the Chamber, so now I know.

Would anyone else consider this? I know percussion music is the red-headed stepchild of composition, :whistling: but I still feel that it's a vaild area of exploration and one that isn't represented by the Avant-Garde and Electronic section.

This is a percussion piece I've just finished. Been working on it for a couple of months. As with everything I finish there are many things I would change now but it's time to move on to the next piece. Three sections, moderate, slow and fast. I've tried to build the melodic material more, with musical interruptions playing a part. http://jstonemusic.net/music/Into%20the%20Sunrise.mp3

flint-wwrr, I think your comment on shorter pieces is very astute. I'm guessing that you also mean that the pacing on pieces in general will become quicker. Even though I write what I'd like to hear, I think my expectations of pacing have changed over the years. While it's not impossible to get into the state of mind to listen to a Mahler symphony, but it's much harder that it was earlier in life. I think many of us have been influenced by the pacing of movies and TV and our expectations have changed. That is a pity too because there are many ideas that can only be expressed though a slower pace and development over time. I hope I can fight this expectation in myself and allow myself to experience those things.

Well I

As I look at the world of composition now, it seems that things are so diverse and scattered even that it