There was once a court case involving Michael Jackson and accusations of plagiary. MJ was the accused. He was able to demonstrate that, in this instance, he had come up with the melody concerned all by himself and, indeed, before the accusing party had composed it. He did this by showing a collection of miniture cassettes that he kept. What happened was that he kept a mini-recorder with him at all times. If an idea came into his head he would hum whatever it was into the mini-recorder. Later he would carefully label the tapes, make copies and send the original to one of his offices via registered mail so that he had proof that the tape had existed on a certain date. This, of course, was until he got around to doing something with the idea in question, at which point more formal methods would take over.
Now this is fine for Michael Jackson. Any place, any time he could say "excuse me, I'm having an idea" and whip out the minicorder. He, after all, was Michael Jackson. How does a mere mortal do that at the office or round the dinner table?
I ask because lately I have been having lots of ideas pop into my head. They never give much warning, and they tend to manifest themselves at odd moments. Two days ago I was walking out into the car park and this little melody came into my head. "Wow!" I thought. "That might be the start of something." But now I have to drive home. No problem - I can hum it to myself. But I'm listening to the cricket on the radio and at some point on Beyers Naude drive I find myself shouting "Kallis you d...." and oops! Where'd that tune get to?
I kind of got that one back. I'm not convinced it's the same *, but I managed to get home and map something vaguely like it to a chord sequence. Now I need more words than the about 1/3 of a verse that I have.
This morning, whilst on my way to answer a call of nature, three lines popped into my head. Well two at first, and then a third announced itself and seemed to follow nicely. I would like to remember these. OK... I'll write them down on a piece of paper and hope it doesn't go into the wash.
I need to find a way of recording these ideas that sneak up on me with no warning. A notebook goes some of the way. But the snatches of tune? You might be able to write these down on staves, but I can't.
Bloody inspiration.
* I have in the past noticed that tune in your head somehow sounds less magical when you get it down onto a physical instrument. I thought this was just me not knowing enough about music and thus botching things up. But recently I read an interview with a very fine songwriter, Richard Thompson, and I took heart from it. Well it happens to him too....
I think that before you pin music down, while it’s still floating a bit in your head, it always sounds fabulous. It’s never that good again. It’s almost celestial when you haven’t quite figured out what it is yet, when it’s still floating around and you haven’t quite grabbed it and defined it. It’s almost like music of the heavens.
But at some point, you have to bring it to earth and I suppose, at that point, you pick up an instrument. And you decide actually it’s in A and there’s three other chords. And it becomes a little more mundane, more of this world, and it’s a little bit of a sad time, but it’s rewarding that you capture it. It’s a bit like there’s a butterfly floating in the air, this beautiful butterfly, and you really enjoy watching it and you think, “I’ve got to have it.” So you get your butterfly net and your grab it and you’re really excited to see what it looks like when you take it out of the net, and you find the colors have all faded and it’s become this kind of gray thing. It’s become this sort of slightly less interesting object.
http://www.americansongwriter.com/2010/01/legends-richard-thompson/
