Have you ever woken up at 5am with a tune playing in your head that you think may be original, so you get up and quickly jot down the opening bars before you lose it, then get back to bed quickly because you need your beauty sleep like Pamela Anderson needs a bra, but you can’t sleep because this tune is starting to develop variations and harmonies, and then suddenly you wake up with the alarm and you have an early meeting to attend, so you go to work and have the meeting, and then when lunchtime comes you rush off to a quiet place to try playing the tune, to find you’ve only got four notes and you’re not even sure of the rhythm anymore?
Yep. I’ve done that. I actually DO get up and jot it down. The first time it happened, I woke up thinking, “That was so good, there’s no way I’ll forget it.” Yeah. Right. Gone forever.
But I’m sure it’s an amazing rhythmless four notes, Martin. Poor fella.
What is even more discouraging is when you actually catch the melody, remember it, right it down, and then when playing it the next day realize your wonderful original piece is an IrTrad-ized version of some drek and drivel tune off the car radio…
Funny…I don’t normally wake up with tunes in my head, but this morning I did.
You think maybe we’re having a CME induced musical experience??
btw, my tune was American Rifle Team…never played it on the whistle, but I heard it in my head as a whistle tune. Gonna go try it.
EDITTED after looking it up on JC’s
Oh ick…it goes up to a high E!!! This maybe a tune I simply hand over to a fifer and let 'em rip. I learned it on hammered dulcimer (heads up all you HDers!) and its pathetically easy to do this moving chord in the B part on a hammered dulcimer. I also learned it as a driving reel, not a hornpipe. A real sharp attack on the first and fifth notes gives the tune a real rifleshot sort of sound IMHO.
If anyone manages it on the whistle (or fife)…please let me know! Better yet, Clip/Snip it please!
Dorothy Parker used to have that happen with profound literary insights, so she put a notepad on her bedstand. One night soon after, she awoke with a terrific inspiration and WROTE IT DOWN!!! She went back to sleep feeling a warm sense of uplift and anticipation, knowing the brilliant bit was recorded safe and sound. Upon arising, she picked up the notepad and read, “Hogamus higamus, all men are bigamists. Higamus hogamus, women monogamous.”
Martin: I written whole pieces of musicand songs, for naught upon waking up. Also, while cycling or when I used to run I would whistle new tunes etc. And of course, never have the time to drop everything and notate. Finally, I got one of those portable cheap cassette recorders to sing song ideas into. Haven’t “written” anything since!
I have dreams too, where I read several pages out of books I have never seen. I can see the pages clearly and I have a parallel dream of the action taking place from the words, like history. It’s very weird.
I had a dream once where I was playing a Low D whistle. I find that just odd, especially since I have only ever seen them in pictures. I dreamt I was walking around in my living room playing it, but I was not able to do too well because in my dream I didn’t know piper’s grip.
And I often think up what I think might be new tunes, and then I promptly forget them because I lack the ear training to write them down.
I got a Yepp-35 mp3 player and recorder. It’s tiny, easy to start up and get recording, and does a really nice job with recording music. I keep it by the bed next to a whistle, and haven’t woken up with a tune in my head since!
Works for me!
serpent
Yeah, that happened to me with a combination of the Star of Munster and…Julia Delaney I think. I came quite close to performing it…it would have been under my name.
I revere the Parker wit, Jerry. -I think it was she or Talulah Bankhead, encountering a smarmy young woman offering her boarding of a train ahead of herself with the “Age before beauty” crack -responded “Pearls before swine!” -Now there’s a wit!
Well the good news is I found my scrawled 5am ABC notation of the tune, and managed to rescue some of the tune, so at least it wasn’t wasted. Now I have the basic opening refrain, I just need to keep playing around with it and writing (or recording) the developments that I like.
I think I’ll take you your ideas about keeping a recorder by the bed - even if I don’t get anything good down, maybe it’ll prolong my beauty sleep by killing artistic innovation.
Glad to know I’m not the only person on the board who gets these dream tunes, original or stolen!
Poor fella.
