I find myself writing more orchestral music, it's tough, requires more concentration than programing (skill issue?) and is sooo time consuming. I also write code (duh!). And I also write books (not so much recently but still)
One thing in common I notice lately is that the sooner you start to "commit" things in the computer, the longer it takes to finish anything. For programing we have IDEs and AI interfaces. For orchestral music we have notation applications (MuseScore, Sibelius, Dorico). I generally find the process being:
- you have an idea
- you write it down on paper (what I mean in the title as the "Analog domain")
- you translate scribbles to a polished, machine-understandable representation - words, code, notation
I sometimes skip step 2 and, when I do, more and more often I find the result suffers. And takes longer.
Now, some tasks and tweaks are simple enough that you can go directly to step 3. But, in general, I find that any reasonably creative or complex task can greatly benefit by marinating in the Analog domain. Yup, pen(cil) and paper.
In the days of "vibe" coding it's very tempting to just demand things from your coding agent. And when it just works, one-shot-like, it's miraculous. And when it doesn't you ask again and you tweak your instructions, or, worst case, you tell the agent that whatever it produced doesn't work. That's the worst, you becoming a test interface between the machine that runs code and the machine that writes it:
"Machine, gimme"
"There"
(Copy-paste, or Accept)
"No, doesn't work, again"
"There"
(Copy-paste, or Accept)
"No, doesn't work"
.... and so on.
It has happened to me to be in such a loop. I stopped, I realized I don't understand myself what I'm asking. I read, I wrote it out on paper, then asked again. Miracle, it works! (Well, now you have a bunch of leftover spaghetti code that should be thrown away and then you can ask again for a cleaner solution)
Same with music, I start in the Analogue domain, I have an idea, I play it on an instrument, I write it down on paper. Instrumental orchestral music is often more complicated than pop's verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus form, where you basically have 2 ideas and 1 development-like bridge. In orchestral music there's usually more development, less repetition, more theme-countertheme, modulation, modal changes, etc. It helps to have the structure/form more fleshed out before coming to the computer. The computer notation is a finicky process, it requires precision and you spend a lot of time tweaking symbols just so, so that the result is what you imagined. Which is not conductive to experimentation and moving things and failing.
Failing is important. Fail often, fail fast.
And the Analogue domain is the better time to explore and fail before you start futzing around with details.
Details are important, of course, but spending time detailing something that's still in flux is counterproductive. Like... you start tiling a wall in an unfinished house and you still don't know if this is the bathroom you're tiling.
Ask the writer Jennifer Egan too. She writes her books with pen and paper, improvising. Because words in the computer look finished and you edit yourself all the time and don't allow yourself to explore and fail.
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