Yes, I am in Beijing China, have been here several months and am working for Tsinghua University as a web developer and editor for their english version website.  I'm an artist and my main love recently has been video, but that has proven to be an achingly difficult medium here.  Still, I persevere although slowly.  I've been trying to discover ways to blend music with visual art, and I think with digital media we have half a chance of accomplishing this.  For a format I've adopted Thomas Tallis' 3rd mode melody, only a minute long and has sheet music and mp3 I can use.  I assign video events for each voice, soprano, alto, etc, and then try cutting this all together with a complicated scheme of notes representing visual elements.  I just finished one using a contemporary ballet I experienced here in beijing--fantastic BTW--but am stuck in the que trying to figure out how I'm going to get it uploaded.  There are many complicated issues here involving the government, the university, my boss, etc etc. 

So, enough about me, tell me, do you just walk into your studio and sit down and start laying down tracks without a diagram or outline or any idea what goes first and what comes next?  I am super curious about how your 'music' guys work with your medium.

your friend in PRC, Cheryl