It is apparent that over the last few years more and more schools are investing in technology to enhance their music department. Back in my day as a student we were lucky to have an electronic keyboard and pair of headphones in order to try and cobble together a GCSE music composition. Nowadays, a lot of school music departments will have a plethora of keyboards all connected up to computers most likely running Cubase, Logic Pro or something similar.

As a result some might argue that creating music has become more about how skillful you are using computers than to do with any ability to play a musical instrument. You could of course respond to such an accusation with the question, does that matter? Music is an expression made by the composer. Yes, perhaps 100 or more years ago, music was very structured and only the style of the day was acceptable. I would be shot down in flames for saying that Mozart sounds like Haydn, and Bach is just a clever version of Vivaldi. But nevertheless, up until the latter half of the 19^th century, each preceding period had its own relatively unique musical style and form. Charles Rosen’s book, “The Classical Style”, is clearly evidence of this relating to the 18^th century styles of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.