Does Composing by Hand Change the Music?

David Lang. Photo: Mark Savage.

Does Composing by Hand Change the Music?

The composer David Lang talks about how writing by hand changed his music.

Andrew Zolinsky’s upcoming Dublin concert brought to mind his recordings of David Lang’s solo piano music. The opening track on this was written by hand was Lang’s attempt to write music with pencil and paper again, having long turned to composition using a computer. He describes the experiences as being much more physical — ‘like a stone mason’ — and says that the different process changed the music.

Published on 3 October 2012

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