Summary on a Newsgroup - rec.music.compose

The rec.music.compose is an interesting newsgroup. It is like an informal social gathering of musicians. Anyone can start a new topic and anyone can jump in and join the discussion, and of course anyone can jump out if one wants. As the people joining this newsgroup are mostly musicians, they inevitably relate everything they talk to music.

As the name of the newsgroup implies, this newsgroup talks mostly on the composing of music.

One of the most frequent topic is about the use of computer music score publishing programs. Some people posted the bugs (errors) of those programs and other people posted the solutions.

There is also a monthly report on the comparison of the such programs. The report is very comprehensive list comparing more than 200 programs under the MS-Windows, DOS, UNIX platforms.

Another frequent topic is the use of synthesizers in music composition. You will find all sort of synthesizer models such as DX-7, Roland MPU-401 in the subject lines.

There are also discussions on the published music, from Renaissance to 20th century. You may find the discussions on the styles of Bach, and orchestration arrangements of Mozart.

As this is an informal gathering, the topics are not strictly bounded to music composition.

Recently someone posted a music joke on it and many people response with other music jokes. The one I like the most is this:

17. How do you know when there's a singer at your door?
1. He can't find the key and he doesn't know when to come in.

If you are not familiar with the musical terms, you may not appreciate the pun. The word "key" can be the key for a lock and it also means music notes (high and low pitches). The phrase "when to come in" can be understood as not knowing when to walk in the house, or with a musical sense, not get to the pulse and do not know when to start singing. Is a singer who does not know the note and pulse really a singer?

If you are a member of a band or choir, visiting this newsgroup is surely an interesting time If you are not used to musical terms, visiting is not for you. The newsgroup is for music lovers.