Composing : Improving Audiation, and Pen vs Mouse by George DeLorean

I hope that what follows isn't a meandering, sophomoric ramble from me, as someone who doesn't have the deep experience of so many here.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear or read the word "audiation?" You might not know the term, but everyone knows what it is. Just as how something can be "seen" in the mind's eye, music can also be "heard" in the mind's ear, as it were. Think of any piece of music that you know, then hear it in your mind. This is the basis of audiation. The only difference is that those of us who use audiation to compose have music that doesn't yet exist outside our heads yet.

Because I can't play anything aside from a bass guitar to save my life, audiation is where I get my musical ideas from; everything I compose comes directly from my strewn-about, crazy brain. Yet, as much as I've improved my abilities therein, I'm not satisfied just yet.

Until now, everything I've composed has been with the use of Finale. What I mean is that while the music itself originates through audiation in my mind, I've put the music, note-by-note, into the program so that I can have it played back immediately to make sure that it's correct.

While that's all well and good, I've become more demanding of myself to compose without the use of the program, and therefore bought a sheet music notebook to put the musical ideas down as they've presented themselves. The idea is to free up my mind to a far more significant degree so that ideas will come more naturally using the notebook to start a piece; I don't go to the program until I've filled up an entire page with a new piece.

I still put the initial page of music into Finale for playback and correction, however my goal is to use the program as more of an aid and not so much of a crutch. I doubt that I'll ever use a significant portion of my current, or any future notebooks to write a full piece, however at least for now, using the notebook is already paying dividends because I'm using time and key signatures that I've never used before, and I'm writing out more fluid ideas that I wouldn't have thought possible without it.

I shouldn't feel myself any less of a composer for using Finale, even though the... purity of a pen and paper shouldn't also be viewed as "superior" over the use of a mouse and computer either, as that's a gatekeeping mentality that I don't wish to participate in.

I really hope that I can become more of the composer I want to be, and not stuck where I am.

I don't know, maybe these are just idiotic thoughts from an idiotic person.