The Songwriter Forum - songwriting reviews, tips and chat
Songwriter Forum => The Writing Process => Topic started by: Serotonin on September 24, 2015, 01:43:28 AM
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When I lie down in bed at night my mind effortlessly imagines countless melodies. But when I puck up my guitar it's all gone. Does this happen to anyone else? It's so incredibly frustrating to hear beautiful songs as I go to sleep and then have them vanish by the morning. Is there any way to avoid forgetting something in your head, or better yet, to be able to imagine melodies out of thin air at a less inconvenient time? Or am I the only one who has this issue?
Whether people can help or not, I'd like to hear people's thoughts on this, it's as intriguing as it is infuriating...
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Totally normal tortured genius stuff! You've got to record it somehow. Sing into your phone; if there are other people around can you silently play an unplugged electric guitar?; or just write on paper - even if you don't do musical notation you can write the number of beats and little up and down arrows to give an idea of the melody. Even if no lyrics, putting down some words that fit can remind you of the rhythm.
Some quotes:
"I have a little corner where nobody can hear me in the middle of the night, and that's where I spend most of the night times. I wake up the next morning and find these strange notes to myself." (Chris Martin)
“there was always the risk that we’d just forget it. If the next morning you couldn’t remember it, it was gone. In actual fact, you had to write songs that were memorable, because you had to remember them or they were lost! There must have been dozens lost this way. … So you would have to form the thing, have it all finished, remember it all, go in pretty quickly and record it.” (Paul McCartney)
Keep on going - there's only one thing worse than forgetting ideas and that's not having any in the first place...
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I'm really pleased you started this thread Serotonin.
I get this from time to time... I'm asleep dreaming and there is some music playing that sounds amazing. It has all sorts of layers and complexities and instrumental parts that I can hear with real clarity. I'm listening thinking 'wow, whoever came up with that must be a genuis... I wish I could write like that'.
Then I realise I'm dreaming, and the music is in my head... it dawns on me that its original and its mine. So I wake up desparately trying to keep it in my head - but at best by the time I get to my guitar or a voice recorder the most I can retain and capture is the basic melody. When it happens I usually end up late for work, or driving with my phone recording in my pocket singing over the engine noise.
If I was a lot more musically adept - like a music graduate or something, its not impossible that I could capture all of what I hear in my dream. But generally I pick up my guitar and what I play sounds nothing like what I hear in my head. I keep learning in hope anyway.
One bizarre coincidence is that it only seems to happen when the window is open, almost like the inspiration floats in on the eddies, scents and frequencies in the morning breeze. I think its also a relaxation thing. I can bang my head against a brick wall and come up with nothing but rubbish when I'm consciously trying to write around a busy working week. But when I come back home after a relaxing weekend away, or wake up after a good night's sleep what comes out is much better.
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One bizarre coincidence is that it only seems to happen when the window is open, almost like the inspiration floats in on the eddies, scents and frequencies in the morning breeze.
Interesting. Have you considered the possibility of a magical song fairy? ;D
Seriously though, it is a bizarre occurrence. It's like I can lie down in the dark at 1 in the morning and within seconds there'll be a song fully-formed in my head.
I think its also a relaxation thing. I can bang my head against a brick wall and come up with nothing but rubbish when I'm consciously trying to write around a busy working week. But when I come back home after a relaxing weekend away, or wake up after a good night's sleep what comes out is much better.
Personally, I think it's best to deprive your senses of sound and visual stimulus until your mind gets bored and starts jamming.
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Haha way too much coffee this morning I think... ;D
You need to do your best to capture them when they happen. Like Adamfarr says, even if its singing the melody quietly into your phone. If you leave it, it will be gone forever, but even if you capture just a bit of it, theres a chance it will start flowing back... or at least build into something else based on the essence of what came into your head.
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I'm not sure if this is your thing.. but if you try meditation that might be a way or mining your subconscious. It could be easier to capture the melodies when you're meditating than when your suconscious is taking over because you're falling asleep. Not really delved into it myself, but I imagine it could work. Didn't the Beatles use meditation?
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I'm not sure if this is your thing.. but if you try meditation that might be a way or mining your subconscious. It could be easier to capture the melodies when you're meditating than when your suconscious is taking over because you're falling asleep. Not really delved into it myself, but I imagine it could work. Didn't the Beatles use meditation?
Paul McCartney did use meditation. But how much of that was real and how much was just hippie alternative lifestyle bullshit I don't know.
That said, meditation and mindfulness has been known to improve songwriting ability so I may as well give it a try.
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This might or might not work for you.
I find that if I just have a tune, I lose it by morning.
But if I assign it a lyric (even a nonsensical lyric) I can get it back in the morning.
Even if you need to sing it to a well known nursery rhyme, it might be worth trying.
Good luck.
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Some interesting thoughts on creativity investigated on the Horizon programme 'The creative brain, how insight works' on UK TV, it strongly suggested in one experiment (approx 47:30 mins) that creativity does not come when doing nothing, does not come when being busy concentrating on a task but happens when doing mindless easy tasks, such as walking the dog, meditating, mowing the lawn etc when the brain is active but still has bandwidth to wander to creative thoughts.
It's worth a watch, maybe this is what happens when you relax before sleeping? :)
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Success!
I just stared at myself in the mirror judgmentally in a mirror with guitar in hand with no distractions and eventually, my fingers invented something which I think is original. I might put it up here for confirmation though...
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I never hear melodies at bed-time, though I have dreamt about a number of completely new songs, never before heard. These songs are often immaculately produced and I sometimes see a performance of them in my dream. Seriously! Songs flow very easily when I want to write. I cannot however recall the finished songs upon waking, just a feeling that I had a sneak preview of something rather beautiful that leaves me with a good feeling.
Paul
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Dunno about meditation. I keep a small (actually, not so small - it's a Zoom) digital recorder in the bedroom and do a "la-la-la" thing into it if an idea comes to me - doesn't always work, sometimes I end up wondering "What the hell was all that about?" when I wake up next day. But I've got enough decent stuff out of doing this to make it worthwhile.
As for words, I'm often thinking of phrases and what seem to me to be sonorous combinations and juxtapositions of words. On other occasions, something in the newspaper might catch my eye, or I might overhear an intriguing snippet of a conversation in the street. These all go into my diary, next to the shopping list for a couple of cartons of milk, a new computer mouse and a dozen 0.60 mm guitar picks - the things one needs on a daily basis. Eventually they become the title for a song, or maybe just a part of the second line in verse three.
Walking down the street at a fairly determined pace often gets the ideas flowing for me. Try singing "Don't Forget to Say Goodbye" when you've got a purposeful stride going, and you'll see what I mean.
The ones that always elude me are those that come to me with such apparent clarity just as I'm waking up. No amount of "la-la-la"-ing or frantic reaching for the guitar ever seems to be able to recapture those ones; if I'm lucky, something quite different might come out instead, and that ends up being a result in itself.
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The ones that always elude me are those that come to me with such apparent clarity just as I'm waking up. No amount of "la-la-la"-ing or frantic reaching for the guitar ever seems to be able to recapture those ones; if I'm lucky, something quite different might come out instead, and that ends up being a result in itself.
I can relate to this. It's very hard to la-la-la it when the song in your head is a fully formed complex composition with harmonies and melodies from multiple instruments.
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That musical blurb or phrase pops up at the most inconvenient times, doesn't it? In the subway station, in the shower, just not conducive places to get an idea down fully formed.
So what I do is whip out a recording app on my smartphone, since that's most likely the recording device closest to me when inspiration hits. Then I just hum or sing it in, badly. Later on I revisit it and hopefully it provides the clue to remember - or even inspire something better!
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I am a year late for this post ;D but just wanted to say I get exactly the same way I allocate times to do voice work and writing and sit chewing my pencil and staring at lines, but when the house is quiet and i have 4 hours until the alarm is going to go off I am flooded with hooks. Incidentally i had trouble finishing songs when i first started i would have a verse and chorus and nothing else the first song i ever finished began with the line I wish that I could finish just one of my songs! The bridge or break section describes exactly the frustration in this thread shameless plug ? https://soundcloud.com/jade-xuereb/norush-1
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Yep
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This is me completely. Only thing is, I almost always successfully make it into a song. Don't know why, but I do have an excellent ear.
Now what I usually do is this:
- I get the song in my head, but don't rush to an instrument right away. I keep going, making up other sections of the song and just imagine in the most natural way what the lead melodies are like. At this point, arrangements and instrumentation are bound to show up. Keep them in mind but don't focus on it.
- pick up the phone and record just my humming. I don't worry too much on harmonies, but if they're essential to the melody I usually just hum the harmonies as well.
- Pick up the guitar and just find the main bass notes of each chord. Cause this is where the idea might fail on you and it's suddenly gone. If you add actual chords, your mind has a tendency to follow the guitar instead of the melody in your head.
- Carefully record one section of the idea at a time. Keep it as simple as possible. Make sure your maintain the original idea that was in your head.
Most often, the initial idea you get in your head is all about melody and rhythm. That's what makes up the core of the idea and that's why you feel it's a strong idea. Make sure you capture that idea! It will drive the rest of the creation process.
Also, songwriting is all about inspiration and the drive you have at the time. If you loose the drive, you loose the idea. But if it's a really good idea, it will stick. And you'll get the same drive the next time you go work on it.
Some people find that getting some space from the song is important. I agree and disagree. If I'm working on a song, I keep working on it until it's done. I'm obsessed with it at this point :p
But it needs to have a certain shape before I'm done with the rough sketch. And then I introduce it to the band or any other collaboration I have on writing. And then we figure out the details together.
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Hey thanks for sharing this Kenny.
Its when I pick up the guitar and play a chord that it goes wrong for me - if its not the right chord first time it just all goes out the window. I'll definitely try that with the bass-notes.
Bizarrely I have not woken up with anything in my head for months and months, but this week I have slept with the bedroom window open again and woken up with stuff playing in my head again. Its like shutting the window and the outside world shuts out the inspiration.
Ben
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Hey thanks for sharing this Kenny.
Its when I pick up the guitar and play a chord that it goes wrong for me - if its not the right chord first time it just all goes out the window. I'll definitely try that with the bass-notes.
Bizarrely I have not woken up with anything in my head for months and months, but this week I have slept with the bedroom window open again and woken up with stuff playing in my head again. Its like shutting the window and the outside world shuts out the inspiration.
Ben
Well, maybe there's something to it? An open window means better air. And better air means a clearer mind. Most often when I'm doodling melodies is when I go for a walk and walk home from the studio. So it might be the air that's the thing :) Will certainly keep that in mind!
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I try to keep blank music paper around so I can write down melodies when I think of them. If they come with words, I can write the words, too. When I try to go to the piano or guitar first, I always start with the wrong notes, and then the idea can get knocked right out of my head, just like others have mentioned. Writing it down prevents that problem. This is, for me, one of the biggest advantages of being able to read (and write) music.
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When I write consciously its like I'm lining up 4 bar fish tanks and putting different colours and species of fish in them. What my unconscious mind comes up with feels more like a small unspoilt part of the ocean. When I wake up with the music in my head, at best I can bring back one species and put it in my fish tanks. But it does feel like a more exotic species, that I can't get in the shops.
I would love to be able to bring back more. Maybe if I spend more time playing and transcribing I will build up a more natural connection between what is in my head and the instrument (or sheet music like CaliaMoko). Or maybe I with relaxation the subconscious music will come while I'm awake, like Kenny. Walking outdoors doesn't seem to work for me.
Fascinating subject I think.
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I have a version of this problem sometimes. I imagine a lyric set to a particular tune, but when I try to remember the lyric again I've forgotten the tune. It's frustrating, but I've discovered that the best solution is simply to write another tune!
Regarding Doodles' problem with the "wrong chord", I completely agree that hitting the wrong chord in a sequence can completely throw you out. I don't play the guitar - I have a keyboard and what I try to do with a difficult chord, rather than trying to play the whole thing, is to imagine individual notes in the chord. That's usually the bass note, and the melody note or any unusual chromatic notes that might stand out. When I've got that I can usually use my knowledge of harmony to work out what the chord actually is. It's not 100% successful, and it relies on a good theoretical knowledge, but it normally works for me.
Incidentally I also use this technique for transcribing the chords of existing songs from YouTube or similar sites. I don't trust those chord sites!