Would You Write Music By Hand If You Didn't Have A DAW ?

[THE INTRANCER]

I guess if you were locked up in prison, you would have no choice....but I do remember my days stuck in a classroom in the early 1990s where writing music by hand was sort alike a form of torture for me personally. There were no computers in sight, let alone a DAW on an Atari ST.

[jamcat]

I write on instruments (guitar, bass, piano, synths). I use Studio One to record it (audio and MIDI). I also use the DAW for notating the music so I don't forget how to play it. Particularly, I use MODO BASS and various guitar instruments to sequence out parts fret for fret. I'm hoping IK comes out with MODO GUITAR one day for this.

I have written out notation and tablature by hand before. I much prefer using the computer for that because then I can also hear how it's supposed to sound.

[zerocrossing]

The DAW didn’t really change the way I write music. At it’s core, a DAW is just a multi-track tape deck, mixer, and sequencer. Of course now it’s also instruments as well, and even some DAWs like Bitwig blur the line between instrument and DAW with their Grid system, but really it’s all the same. What the DAW did was streamline things a lot and open up possibilities that were either impossible or impossibly expensive with pre DAW equipment. I’ll try things now and experiment in ways that are fun that would have taken hours of setup. I probably wouldn’t have even bothered a lot of the time because the chances I’d get something great out of it were too low, but now, I can set some crazy routing scheme in a few minutes.

Ultimately, though, I’m writing with a single instrument. Either a guitar or a simple synth sound. I come from the school of thought that a song should still sound good when stripped down to almost nothing. But that’s more traditional pop songs. I’ll also do ambient and experimental electronic stuff, but that’s more free-form improvisation and I’ll go back and edit and add bits. It’s all the same thing I used to do with audio loopers (Lexicon JamMan, Electrix Repeater) and sequencers and tape.

[Serhii Kot]

no

[BONES]

I guess if you were locked up in prison, you would have no choice....but I do remember my days stuck in a classroom in the early 1990s where writing music by hand was sort alike a form of torture for me personally. There were no computers in sight, let alone a DAW on an Atari ST.

What would be the point of writing it down? Before DAWs my songs existed in a range of sequencers, stored on floppies, Zip disks or SCSI drives for those devices with volatile memory. Today I'd probably just use a drum machine, with it's own pattern/song memory, and a couple of Uno Synths with their sequence per patch. It would be a bit hectic, and I'd probably have to get used to playing a lot more stuff live, but it could be easily made to work. If I averaged 5 patterns per song, I'd get 16 songs out of the Unos and the whole set-up probably wouldn't be much more expensive than paying full-whack for Cubase.

[morelia]

I write music down. Always have and always will record ideas on paper. Just depends where I am, what I have etc. When I'm at work or not at home it could be anything from iPad tab to a notebook. I much prefer to just record an idea straight away though.

[Uncle E]

I write music by hand for my daughter. I wouldn't do it for anyone else. Absolute torture otherwise.

[CinningBao]

Yep, and I do.

If I'm writing chords on a guitar or piano, it's the best way to record it. I think it comes down to "if you need to capture the idea, you'll find a way".

I can't imagine any solely electronic musicians thinking "I need to write this down", apart from old synths which didn't have preset management. If the machine is doing the work, you don't have to. But if there's no machine, you do the work yourself.

[El°HYM]

If something like this would also be considered as 'writing' music, then yes.

[BertKoor]

No. The only reason to write music on staff paper is when other musicians are expected to play it. The DAW does not take over that part of making music.

But there are so many ways to make music without a DAW and without pen & paper. Neither has ever been a requirement.

[CinningBao]

the OTHER reason is to record it in some form.

[Ploki]

as i'm a classically trained composer probably yes, and I did write a few things by hand in high school, but i've been using a "DAW" (the early primitive ones anyway) since i was 9y old anyway.
I also never write in notation software, i use notation software strictly for preparing sheet for musicians for recording/live playing.
Notation software is not for writing music, it's for graphic design that also sort of plays midi.

[sin night]

I don't "write" music with a daw as in "writing a score", I program/record/overdub/play... my goal is to make an audio recording, not to make a sheet of music.

As for writing by hand on a sheet, I would do that if there's a purpose, for example taking note of an idea (if I have no alternative tools) or providing a reference to other musicians... It wouldn't feel that like a torture, but I would enjoy it as much as I enjoy doing any paperwork... it's something that I'd rather get it done with as little feelings as possible and as quickly as possible.

[Michael L]

i find notation easier to read than a piano roll

[mothra]

No, I'd just program it into the MPC like I already do.