Pen, Pencil or Keyboard
When I’m online, I’m alone in a room, tapping on a keyboard, staring at a cathode-ray tube. — Clifford Stoll
Someone once asked me why I compose music in longhand rather than using computer music software such as Sibelius or Finale. I don’t do much of that kind of composing, and when I do I like to force myself to focus on what I have written, which helps me to fine-tune it and find mistakes. I need occasional reality checks when I write in different clefs and do transposing. Sometimes I get distracted and start writing the viola part in the violin clef, especially after a few drinks. When I have to copy the whole thing out by hand note-for-note, I see and hear the music again as though for the first time and spot weaknesses I might have overlooked and any just plain lazy writing. If I just had to hit a key and the whole thing reproduced itself automatically, it would be too easy to miss these kinds of problems. However, if I was writing out scores for a living daily I might…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins