Writing what's in your head

To sum it up, the music I hear in my head is always much better than the one I managed to write down. What I feel I lack the most is the abiility to accurately write down what I hear, and I'd love some advice on how to improve in that area. I'm sure it's something that also affects other unexperienced composers, since I hear a lot about it from other people I know.

I've already told you: practise dictation.
Write down melodies that you hear. Get a CD or something, and listen through several times, trying to write down one theme.
Work up from easy to difficult. Practise regularly.

just listen to all the music you can get your hands on, play the themes on the piano fooling around with them and depending on what kind of music you're working with it will get easier very quickly. (classical is easy to hear and write once you learn a little about harmony and counterpoint since it's pretty simple to understand and train your ear to, but modern types are a bit more difficult.. it's just going to take more experience and involvement with this type of music before you eventually find it second nature).

By that do you mean that when the music you write down on finale is not what you had in your mind? Because even with GPO, I don't think finale's sound is realistic in any way. It might "sound" realistic, but many things, such as the dynamics (the relative dynamics especially), are not realistic (as in, what you hear from finale is not what you'd hear from a live performance, with the same score).

Stockhausen had spent hours and hours in his studio before he could finally reach a stage when he could just hear a sound and then go to the synthesizer and synthesize a sound similar to that (as similar as computers can, anyway). Dictation is good, but I wouldn't say it's the absolute way to go. Singing is also good. It might seem weird, but singing helps a lot. When you sing in a choir, for example, you get to hear what the other parts are doing while you sing your own, and thus you can distinguish between all the different parts in a piece with more than one line.

All the advice thus far is great, and I'll just add that listening to music with scores is a tremendous help because if you like a passage out of Mahler, you can read the score and help get general ideas of what he was doing to achieve different effects.

But of course, you must also practice with your ear and have music performed. Those help.

I find it really easy if you listen to music right before bed cause then it stays in your head all night.(for me anyway) Then when I wake up I write.

Originally Posted by M_is_D

To sum it up, the music I hear in my head is always much better than the one I managed to write down. What I feel I lack the most is the abiility to accurately write down what I hear, and I'd love some advice on how to improve in that area. I'm sure it's something that also affects other unexperienced composers, since I hear a lot about it from other people I know.

I agree that you must get your hands on doing melodic dictation starting from simple melodies up. I guess that should improve your writing skills.

Why don't you try improvising the music inside your head on an instrument of your choice. Who knows, you might come up with something really interesting to write down. I think Chopin made use of this approach as well as some other composers. I myself usually do this and most of the time it gives me good ideas for writing. Once I've got myself a certain improvised theme that I like, I try to either record it or write it down.

It also wouldn't hurt to use either Sibelius or Finale for your notation where you can make adjustments regarding what you actually hear in order to match that melody inside your head.

Originally Posted by Musicalgirl

I find it really easy if you listen to music right before bed cause then it stays in your head all night.(for me anyway) Then when I wake up I write.

I do that to, but it doesn't work for everyone. In fact, most composers I know personally have to write down everything as soon as it comes or else they will loose the idea (for the most part). If it does work for you though, then use it for sure. I can come up with something and write it down note for note a few days later, which is REALLY handy at times.

Originally Posted by sterilium

I agree that you must get your hands on doing melodic dictation starting from simple melodies up. I guess that should improve your writing skills.

Why don't you try improvising the music inside your head on an instrument of your choice. Who knows, you might come up with something really interesting to write down. I think Chopin made use of this approach as well as some other composers. I myself usually do this and most of the time it gives me good ideas for writing. Once I've got myself a certain improvised theme that I like, I try to either record it or write it down.

It also wouldn't hurt to use either Sibelius or Finale for your notation where you can make adjustments regarding what you actually hear in order to match that melody inside your head.

As to dictations: I'm in music classes and we do three voice dictations. I have quite the share of them

I think you're assuming I have trouble writing down melodies in my head: no, that's extremely basic. What i can't accurately reproduce is potentially complex orchestration. I hear fully orchestrated pieces in my head but cant split each line in order to know what to write for each instrument section to make it sound as it does in my head.

Still, dictation.
Learn to start writing down two parts, mostly homophonic, then three, four.
Then try two parts, contrapuntal.
Just start basic, and work up, and you'll certainly improve your abilities.