 Most of this time was devoted to the composition of the music, the text having been largely completed in about four years.Like his libretti, Wagner's operatic scores generally passed through a series of distinct stages from sketch to fair copy; but because the composer altered his method of musical composition several times during the writing of the "Ring", there is not the same uniformity in the evolution of the music that we find in the texts.Furthermore, it was often Wagner's practice to work on two or more drafts of a work at the same time, switching back and forth between them as the fancy took him.