Originally published Winter 2015 in The Score, the quarterly journal of The Society of Composers & Lyricists, by Designing Music Now. What is the fastest way to become a better composer? It’s probably to stop doing everything by yourself. The traditional division of labor in the scoring process has eroded completely. Composers used to be one player in a fairly large music team. They put notes on paper, attended recording sessions, and bore few other responsibilities. As our industry has evolved our responsibilities have steadily increased. Today’s composer is responsible for every step of the music team’s process, and very often a lone guerrilla composer replaces the entire team of yesteryear. The support network which used to be built-in has …