ever get an idea and cant write it down in time?

ever get an idea and cant write it down in time? Ill be humming a song in my head and the min. i pick up a pencil or sit down at a computer i loose my train of thought and loose the idea. What do you do to prevent this??? :(

This is not a problem I have often, since I have had facility writing ideas down quickly since I was very young. This can be frustrating to those who are relatively new to notation, or for whom the process takes some time and/or concentration.

Some people I've known carry around a little tape recorder and sing into it when they get an idea. Then they can play it back as needed later.

oh snap J. Lee...that is a good idea! I carry manuscript paper around with me everwhere, just in case, because I have the same problem :( I'm new to composing...I'm getting better at having a good enough grasp on an idea to be able to remember, it just takes time ;)

I hate that. Losing ideas is awful.

I would have a mound of music ATM if it wasent for my poor memory. Too bad i cant record thoughts :ninja: so many string quartets lost.... :ninja:

I don't have to worry about this too much because I compose by experimentation, then get ideas in real time while I experiment. This completely eliminates the problem :ninja:

But, the rare times when I do get visions without experimenting, I do have to sit at the keyboard for a bit in order to reproduce my vision. Sometimes I don't get it, and go off on a completely different route, and it actually sometimes sounds better than I intended. Sometimes I do get it. Hit or miss. But mistakes sometimes are great. Anyway, if you hear something in your mind, just try to get the one line melody down first. Don't try to write down the full thing in one shot. Then after you get the melody down, you can harmonize it, it's much easier that way.

Well I do two things depending on how the melody is.

If it

I don't have to worry about this too much because I compose by experimentation, then get ideas in real time while I experiment. This completely eliminates the problem :huh:

But, the rare times when I do get visions without experimenting, I do have to sit at the keyboard for a bit in order to reproduce my vision. Sometimes I don't get it, and go off on a completely different route, and it actually sometimes sounds better than I intended. Sometimes I do get it. Hit or miss. But mistakes sometimes are great. Anyway, if you hear something in your mind, just try to get the one line melody down first. Don't try to write down the full thing in one shot. Then after you get the melody down, you can harmonize it, it's much easier that way.

I do the exact same way, I agree with your points here.

I have a funny way to fix this.

I make marks on paper to record sounds without using musical notation.

I record the comparison of pitch between the note and length and usually this will help me remember it until later.

For instance:

(It's difficult to do this in a post, but I line them up going left to right from start of song to finish. Here the message board makes it all be on the left side.)

(Space)------------

-----

(Space)(Space)(Space)~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Space) ________________

(Space)(Space)(Space)(Space)(Space)(Space)__________

(Space)(Space)(Space)(Space)(Space)______

Garr, I used to have this problem a lot, I remember way back when I'd have this wonderful idea and I'd try to write it down, but then I'd try to play it and it was all wrong, lol. I've improved since then, luckily. Now I can salvage at least half of my ideas :P

I actually have the opposite problem - I can write things quickly but my ideas are few and far between, at least for now. Lately my inspiration has kicked up a notch, probably because I'm working on so much music at the moment!

Write the melody out on paper. Just the bare melody

After that. Sit down at a piano and hammer chords if anything else.

Once that's done, try a countermelody if there is one. Don't forget to mark down ideas about what instrument plays what. These are all just sketches, like a musical stick figure.

Then, everything will come.

Believe me, it's the Joe Caracas way.

ever get an idea and cant write it down in time? Ill be humming a song in my head and the min. i pick up a pencil or sit down at a computer i loose my train of thought and loose the idea. What do you do to prevent this??? ;)

The same thing happens to me. For some reason, many of my better ideas appear when I'm away from a computer, such as on a train, in the shower or in the waiting room of a medical centre. There are also those times when I mentally improvise, say, idea for guitar solos, but which I immediately forget. I need a brain-to-MIDI converter.

I don't have perfect pitch, and I'm not particularly good with intervals; if I was adept at both, there would be no problem. I've tried writing down my ideas, but this render it difficult. However, I've developed a system of sorts for notating pitches in relation to each other. It generally works; I can go home and figure out/remember a melody or idea from the morning of the same day by using simple notation to spark my memory.

Singing is generally good, but as my aural skills aren't exactly excellent, it still can make me lose my train of thought sometimes. Also, I'm not always near a computer, and it's not always a wise thing to do to randomly tape oneself singing in the middle of a Chemistry class.

Music moves through my mind too quickly for me to catch it. At other times, I can't think of anything at all. Grr.

I lose most of my ideas. While I try to have a pencil and paper around as much as I can, most of my best ideas seem to come when I'm insanely busy with something else. It's hard to stop and write down a musical thought in a trauma surgery ward; likewise it's hard to hold on to an idea until the end of a lecture, and get it all written down in the ten minutes before the following lecture begins.

Whenever I get inspiration in an unlikely place, I'll find a way to write it down. I always keep a full notebook of staff paper in my backpack at school, just in case one of those moments pops up. I've had more music sketches thrown away in spanish class then I care to talk about... thankfully I remembered most of them! :mellow:

But in all honesty, in school my inspiration always comes during spanish class (because I'm not paying attention, mostly).

Can't always afford to do that any more in medical school.

And when working in a hospital, the patients have a way of keeping you busy... but if they didn't, then they wouldn't have to be in the hospital in the first place!

When I get a cool idea, I sing it to myself enough times that I'll be able to remember it later. That way, I already have it memorized, and can play with it a lot before I even get to writting it down.

When I walk, I compose . . . It's when I get my best ideas, when I stop, so does the music and I don't get it written down in time.

I also use CreationArtist's idea, but I forget it that way, too.

Try using a little Post-It pad. Make dots relative to your melody on the piece of paper. If you're concerned about timing... then just space the dots closer or farther apart (it's kinda like musical notation without the staves) This way is small and easy.

My suggestion is to recognize comun patterns of melodies and elimante those who are unmelodic. For instance:

Melodic: 5th follow by a step, arpegio followed by a step, a fourth followed by a 3rd etc sound good.

The more you discourage bad interval sequence ..the easy it becomes for you to write things down.

Do a lot of transposition; play a melody on the piano in different keys and then write it down. I don't agree with the idea of the tape recorder. In other words, hard work only hard work and a little bit of imagination makes improvement. Cheap ways will get you to cheap results.

Also, there is a human stage of an ecstasy of joy sort that few people discover in their lifes. At those moments your focus on music becomes absolute and ideas come abundantly. It is a mistery for me... that one I hope to have control of.

All the time. See I'll get my ideas in the middle of a lecture in school, and by the time its over, when I am free to write stuff down, my idea is lost. It can get really annoying.

When I get a cool idea, I sing it to myself enough times that I'll be able to remember it later. That way, I already have it memorized, and can play with it a lot before I even get to writting it down.

I do that as well!

On occasion I carry around an audio recorder and then narrate ("this is the idea for the main theme of a duet of oboe and flute") what I'm about to hum or sing out ("da da da laaaa la la" hahaha). It actually helps because when I hear my humming the main part on the tape I automatically remember all the countermelodic crap and all that, it appears in my brain from memory.

I need to get a mini tape recorder for that purpose. It'd really be a godsend in some cases.

I need to get a mini tape recorder for that purpose. It'd really be a godsend in some cases.

Funny. I think most of the young guys outt there have a cell phone. No need to get a tape recorder while you have one, cos most cellphones come with a built in recorder. That's a real godsend. Now, when I think of an idea, I could record it anywhere.:P

It's funny to see how you notate your ideas. I remember to have had that discussion at the conservatory few years ago...

To tell my own experience about this, I'd say that I rarely have any theme ideas so I never have to write them down. Even in my opera, the equivalent of Wagner's Leitmotives - motifs that sticks to the caracters or objects - are primarily composed of modes with caracteristic intervals for the differents characters.

I usualy explore ideas the way Chopin might have put it in the first page of this topic. It's usually more based upon theory researches than humming... even though I humm my microtones when I write them ! :toothygrin:

Most of the time, the kind of ideas I get 'on the spot' that I have to note is more orchestration stuff. This parameter of music writting is for my the most spontaneous I guess. (Note to myself : I got to think about this... :laugh: )