This paper attempts to describe some of the questions encountered by the author in composing music in no style with an English text. In particular, the importance of voice production style and the rhythmic correlation between the voices and the drummers is discussed. Examples are given of the opening songs or shidai from each of four English no plays for which the author has composed music, and these are compared with a shidai from a typical Japanese classical no play. There is also a brief discussion of what makes no, no. In this regard, the author suggests that the basic elements of no can be considered as either “internal” or “external” elements, with internal elements being the fundamentals of movement and music, the core of how no actors are trained to use their bodies. By more clearly defining no in this way, a vision of how no might develop in the future becomes evident.