Computer music can be defined as music that is both primarily composed by a computer instead of by human composers and also performed either directly by a computer or indirectly by a computer-controlled synthesizer instead of by human musicians playing instruments or by singers singing. Generating sound through the control of a synthesizer is much easier than producing it directly by a computer, although it can be less flexible, and is thus the most commonly used method.
Although technology has advanced to the stage where computers can now compose music with little or no human input, few people believe that the quality of such music can compare with that composed by the most skilled human composers. Nevertheless, computers have come to play an extremely important role in the creation of music by human composers, particularly with regard to the notation, editing and printing of scores and also for allowing the creation of sounds that are difficult or impossible to produce with conventional instruments.