Writing a modern piano piece

I came up with a couple of themes on my keyboard. Problem is I don't know how to "capture" them.

They feature odd 16th note changing time signatures and "dingalinging" (I don't know what it's called) basically just randomly wiggling around on a chord shape.

How would you notate that?

Now I can't play the piano for my life, but there are things I would like to hear like syncopated 32ths with the left hand against a 16th note pattern with the right.

The problems: a)I can't play the piano well enough to capture what I want to hear.

b) a notation program would be far too tedious to use

I guess the real challege is this, the piece sounds randomish but I don't want the player to just be playing random notes, however I don't see notation as a practical means of getting the music across.

The nice thing about being a composer is that one could write the most demanding music, especially solo repertoire, without expectation of actually being able to perform it.

Or one could be a skilled improviser and create music in real time without having to write it first.

But if neither writing the notation nor performing is not an option, it's a pickle isn't it?

I would recommend that you invest in notation software, if you don't have one already. Being able to put down whatever you hear in your mind's ear is a tremendous empowerment. From your description of the musical passage, it seems that the notation would be quite simple.

Marsbars - the "tedium" of software notation becomes less and less (although I still curse Sibelius for resizing staves when I edit notes and had the staves set to my own desire!) And compared to handwriting scores and then sending them in to be professionally finished, computer notation is much, much easier.

I recommend you explore further the scores at YC. Sebastian's piano piece; any of niklolas', QC's, flint's, Exanimous, Mogri, berlioz, Gardener, justin tokke etc ...chamber works or solo to gauge how really involved the notation will be for your work. And even my old organ piece was quite a chore to write - 3 staves, multiple keys going simultaneously, changing meters and articulations and note values from dotted whole notes to 16th quintuplets.

Plus as a composer, software notation is a must unless you have fantastic penmanship for score writing (and all the materials - rulers to create French style slurs, straight barlines, ink erasers... etc).

Below is the score to my organ piece as one reference point...and this score needs a little tidying.

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/solo-organ-work-new-member-hope-you-enjoy-14579.html