Tom Warren wrote:

>I'm curious to know how a person who can't read music can write it.  How
>does he/she know what key to write it in, what meter to give to the piece,
>proper notation etc.  etc.  Does the person just write out a melody and
>leave the harmony to someone else? What's the story?

This is a good question; my dad asked me the same question this
morning, in fact.  With today's technology a person can play on a midi
controller/keyboard just as if they are playing piano and computer software
will make notation of it.  Now, sometimes with bad quantization, it is
possible to get some awfully quirky or awkward printouts.  Paul did this
when creating Standing Stone.  He played music that he "wrote" at the
keyboard and the computer generated notational printouts.  Later, he had
help from some professional composers (namely, Richard Rodney Bennett) in
getting transpositions correct and what not.  Paul wrote ALL of the music
but just had help with some of the 4-part choral writing "rules" that we
learn in theory class.  For Paul to learn from these people is no different
than you or I learning from our college professor, really.

--Wes Crone