Good question, and additionally, who else might have produced works and what types of works might have been produced?
Throughout history, the music business has favored those who had classical training, including intense fluency in writing and reading notated music. But I have had the pleasure of working with some really brilliant musicians who could barely read or write a note of classical notation. Some of them have become real monsters working within DAW environments. And I know a few who are using the notation features in the DAWs as well as notation products like Dorico to teach themselves to understand âour language.â For people like this, it begins with the sound, not the dots.
The only problem is that no mock-up behaves like an orchestra. Note that I didnât say âsoundsâ like one - itâs possible to make some great sounding mockups. But in (for example) Dorico with Noteperformer that involves a lot of odd tweaking of dynamics and articulation (and sometimes doubling or removing parts) just to get it to sound like an orchestra would at say âmpâ. If you donât know that and just write âmpâ youâll get a shock when it goes in front of a band.
Thereâs a video where Mr. Zimmer did a round table with a couple of couches worth of other film and TV composers. They all groaned about film producers saying âJust let me hear the idea, just a piano is fine, Iâm very creative and experienced; I can imagine where youâre going.â And if the composer falls for that, the composer will inevitably hear âI dunno, I donât really get it, it just sounds like a solo piano.â
I donât think decent mockups are optional for that kind of writing.
I doubt it. For example, there is no solo organ music that Bach actually wrote down, after the age of about 25. That certainly doesnât mean he never composed (or improvised) any more for the rest of his life.
The same goes for his contemporaries as well. For example Reincken, generally considered the best organist of the day, and a major influence on Bach, was employed as a full time church musician for 65 years (working right up to his death aged 99) but only published a handful of works - several of which were rearranged by Bach.
They were both too busy making music to waste time writing it down!
(Note: the date of Reinckenâs birth is disputed, but the alternative date has rather tenuous documentation to support it, and makes him an unlikely child prodigy - though it still has him working up to age 79).
Indeed, and in film scoring, the orchestration is often more important than the actual notes and rhythms. That is to say the texture may be more important than the notes.
A piano rendering is always going to be inadequate to illustrate what should be a soft cello tremolo with a harp gliss leading to a piccolo ornament.