The man who brought the music and lyrics of "Pocahontas" to the world brought students a solution to writer's block yesterday.

Stephen Schwartz, a four-time Oscar winner who has worked on projects including "The Prince of Egypt," "Godspell, and Disney's version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," offered a class on song composition for his audience of 100 in the Adams House Lower Common Room yesterday afternoon.

"The way to get over [writer's block] is to just send the editor to Aruba and force yourself to put something down, regardless of how terrible you may think it is," Schwartz told the audience. "We as writers have some writer and some editor in us, and sometimes you just have to send the editor away."

As part of his presentation, Schwartz critiqued the work of four undergraduates chosen beforehand by Harvard's Office for the Arts as up-and-coming musical theater, pop and classical composers.

He analyzed their work closely, offering feedback and advice, and garnering appreciation from the student composers in the process.

"He really encouraged us to pursue this stuff and not to be intimidated by the Harvard stigma against performance as a career," said David W. Liang '00, one of the four students chosen and this year's composer for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals' annual show.

The other students selected to showcase their works in the class were Ashley L. Filip '00, Lembit L. Beecher '02 and Massi Osseo-Asare '00. The four met with the artist earlier in the day to discuss music and careers in performance.

Though not all of Schwartz's feedback was positive, the students said they didn't mind.