Composing in head

[Carnifex 5]

You know in the evening or at night I have a habit of composing music in my head before falling asleep, usually for a film.

For example arranging strings to play Kamenesque string patterns and adding perhaps an oboe or trumpet melody on it.

Yeah... ripping Kamen from the very first note!

Usually it is not the music I would write to the partiture, but sometimes I create some nice themes and I get excited forgetting to fall asleep. And having woken up in the morning I get upset because those lovely notes are not in my head anymore.

Do you have these tendencies or am I the lone wolf McQuade thinking those things?

[Henry B 50]

I do that. I'm a composing major, though.

[Jeshopk 8]

Do you have these tendencies or am I the lone wolf McQuade thinking those things?

I remember that is why I started composing when I was a teenager. After years of composing music in my head I decided I needed to learn how to write it down. Before I knew about sequencing. My advice is get a keyboard and a notation manual and just start writing. Then worry about a more formal or self-taught education later. Just try not to start on computer at least for a few months, until you can notate some of what's in your head.

[Admiral Holdo 16]

Totally, Carnifex, that happens too often to me.

(love the avatar)

[indy4 155]

I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but sometimes I will here some music, and I will think: "It's good, but I think they could've done this like this instead." It's not as much composing as it is just changing a few notes, or a bit of the tempo and stuff.

[Neimoidian 14]

I had this all the time watching "WotW"

[Next_Spielberg 0]

I've been analyzing the full score to Adventures on Earth, which is amazing. And as I'm attempting to play bits of it, my mind seems to fill in the rest of the orchestra (In certain passages, it's not possible to play every note at once on the piano), which is a very interesting experience.

Sometimes, I also mentally experiment with themes and variations, changing a note here and there or replacing a quarter note with a triplet of that note. It can be a relaxing distraction, but sometimes you want to remember it and don't have anything to notate it on immediately.

[nicholas 1]

Sometimes a fragment of a melody comes into my mind and I have to notate it on the back of my hand with a biro before it disappears into the ether. But one salient and regrettable observation worth making: music's usually better drunk than sober.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

music's usually better drunk than sober.

I noticed that in college. Probably not true if you're an angry drunk, but I just tend to get giddy.

Ray Barnsbury

[David Vincent 8]

I used to compose in my head too, only for my pleasure of course, but not just before falling asleep...

Sometimes, I had great themes but forgot them the next day. So now, when I don't want to forget something, I just write the main melody in a MIDI file and when I listen to it, I remember what I had in mind.

I had this music in mind a few times ago and this is what it gives when completed : http://musicby.jw-music.net/clashclimax.mp3

[Carnifex 5]

Pretty serious stuff. I think Tim Burton would like that.

[Richard Penna 3,757]

I do it all the time. I then either forget the melody 5 mins later, or discover it's 3 notes different from something I was listening to the night before.

Thought I had something original a month or so back. Turned out to be Sao Feng's theme

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I have several themes in my head that have been churning around for years. Some really good too.

[Richard Penna 3,757]

I have two themes that are quite well developed and I'm pretty sure are original. One is slightly similar to part of Horner's Zorro theme, but I haven't yet found any plagiarism source for the other.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

In 1994 I had a short motif running around my head for a few months that Williams then stole and used in Nixon!

[Richard Penna 3,757]

You know, I could swear that Steve Jablonsky's theme for Steamboy is incredibly similar to something I came up with a while back... oh well.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

They read our minds...OUR MINDS I TELL'S YA!

[Carnifex 5]

Same here.. one night I started to compose but Jablonsky's Ray's Theme was haunting in my mind! I started with my own theme but suddenly it morphed into Ray's Theme, damn! I think film composers have the same problems.

[Red 75]

Different themes and moments from Hook and Star Wars seem to have been running through my head for a long time.

Born of the Fourth of July does too oddly enough.