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Worth watching this interview too 'Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs' - https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 Paul

by mentos 5y ago

Worth watching this interview too 'Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs' - https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 Paul McCartney says one day he woke up and had the melody to Yesterday in his head. He says that some musicians dream about music but don't remember it when they wake up. For him he was able to remember and block out chords. For me that is what a musician does - 'dreaming awake'.

circlefavshape 5y ago
I've often hopped out of bed in the middle of the night with an AMAZING tune in my head from a dream, and recorded it on my phone. They've invariably been shite when I listened to them the next morning
- reader5000 5y ago
  I've somewhat had this phenomenon, with the added observation that if I listen to the recording multiple times it will "click" and will sound good again. Then I wonder if it actually sounds good or what.
- GDC7 5y ago
  > shite Yesterday is only good when you hear it in hindsight, knowing the commercial success that it had and under the influence of halo effect Honestly every song of that Level is. You have to put together a good album and it can make it to 100k copies sold . Everything above 100K copies is more telling about the luck and the scope of the promotional campaign supporting it then it says about the album itself . It’s a phenomenon you see in every field . Gisele Bunchen is beautiful but not 400M dollar beautiful Bill Gates is smart but not 170B smart The Mona Lisa is a great painting I guess but not 1B dollar worth Jesus was a pretty cool role model , but not a 3B devote follower type role model dictating that the world stops on his birthday All the above phenomenons rely on a mix of luck, vitality and as well as people not thinking about potentially buying into something that could be overrated and ‘overpriced’ compared to cheaper options which is the definition of halo effect
  - tomcam 5y ago
    Jesus dictated the world should stop on his birthday?
    - GDC7 5y ago
      Well if he really existed as an historical figure (we highly suspect he did) then for sure he would not be displeased if he knew that the world came to a halt on his birthday and that he has 3B followers and not like Instagram followers who have an attention span of 1 minute, just the number 3 billion doesn’t really paint the whole picture . It’s the amount of waking hours that the totality of humanity spend thinking about him. Nobody even comes close . No king , no absolute dictator , no celebrity (modern or past). It’s power law on steroids Many of the 3B dedicate at least an hour a day thinking about him and the values he tried to communicate , and in a very deep way He was somewhat of a crossover between a magician , a cult leader an artist and a businessman self promoter so nobody can convince me that he would not the type to gloat about his success. And honestly I can accept that . I’d rather have promotion about love and compassion than the technoutipian futurism such as crypto Jesus or rocket Jesus . But as I said I have to point out that luck plays a huge role . So many people tried to sing the virtue of compassion and love via story telling but only Jesus broke out and became a figure with 3 billion religious followers
      - tomcam 5y ago
        That was a very long non-answer
        GDC7 5y ago
        Short answer : He didn’t dictate it, but he’d be pleased about it. He was a human being after all, if you want to cut him some slack you can compare him with a contemporary Buddhist monk. They too have an ego
        burntoutfire 5y ago
        Too bad it's not his actual birthday, but rather an arbitrarily chosen day in year by the Roman Church to coincide with an already-existing holiday (winter solstice). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
- scelerat 5y ago
  I write songs too, and this is often how it works for me. Songwriting is like any other kind of creative work. You come up with an idea, put it into some concrete form. That first recording. If it's shite, give it a minute and then come back to it with fresh ears and think about what you like about it and what you don't like. Take away the parts you don't like. Maybe you can think of something else that works with what you already like. Work that in. Evaluate. Rinse, repeat. Sometimes you just have to abandon stuff that isn't working and move on to something completely different. That's OK too. Just keep doing it and your output will get better and better. Even though it can be fun, in order to do it well you have to work on it. Your tenth song is going to be better than your first song, and your hundredth song is going to be better yet.
  - circlefavshape 5y ago
    Hehe I'm kinda flattered that you think I sound young enough to dish me out some advice about songwriting
    - scelerat 5y ago
      I tend to entertain the notion that anyone posting publicly isn't posting solely for their own indulgence but to others' benefit as well. insofar as making stuff goes, especially art, I think there are widely held views that it either comes easy to you, or you don't do at all. It doesn't occur to some people that to be good at something (even something "fun") you have to work at it and put in time that decidedly isn't fun.
auspex 5y ago
What he’s talking about is when you’re deep into music, that small time between deep sleep and when you’re waking up you have almost a lucid dream where amazing music comes to you. The problem is right when you wake up. It vanishes. The “hit” song is on the “tip of your brain” … then gone. It happens to me and musicians I know. On occasion you remember one.
- loydb 5y ago
  Stevie Ray talked about learning amazing solos from Hendrix in his dreams, but he could never remember them when he woke up.
- dhosek 5y ago
  I tend to have two kinds of musical dreams: there are those when my fingers are magic and everything comes out amazing and those when everything comes out awful. I think I've managed to retain a dream melody once or twice. Recently I dreamt a poem that was absolutely amazing but when I woke up it had melted away even before I awoke. I have some dribs and drabs of it that I'm trying to reassemble into something coherent.
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    Were you disturbed by a person from Porlock?
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Yes. Later the authorities determined I was merely a poet and thus not a concern.
- bthallplz 5y ago
  I have this happen every once in a while, and I love it. That state between sleeping and full wakefulness is one of my favorite things to experience because of things like this, hearing music, and also being much more creative. I've learned to stay in the state for a decent while - seemingly lengthening it from seconds to a number of minutes - by keeping my mind relaxed/loose. (The state of transitioning from wakefulness to sleep is also nice, but it seems less readily "useful" in this way.) As someone that wouldn't regularly consider themselves a musician, hearing music out of nowhere is super cool but weird.
conradfr 5y ago
In the Muscle Shoals documentary Lynyrd Skynyrd's guitarist says the two guitar solos in Sweet Home Alabama came to him note for note in a dream.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
Sometimes when I hear music playing in the distance my mind "fills in the gaps" and I hear a "new" song. I wonder if this is a related phenomenon.
- handrous 5y ago
  If I try, and focus, and am in the right mood, I get some pretty good-sounding symphonies, just kind of happening. Never any other kind of music. Which is weird because I mostly listen to various forms of popular music.
- klodolph 5y ago
  Developing that skill makes it easier to be a songwriter, but I think most people do it to some extent. One of the tricks is that sometimes when you hear a song in your head, it's a bit sloppy and has some blanks in it. Like, there may be a melody with a descending run, but it's not clear what the steps are in the descending run or which notes it starts and ends on. Another one of the tricks is that people typically focus on the topline melody, but if you hear a song in your head, you probably also at least "hear" the bass, or even other internal voices in the harmony. But without practice, you might not know that this is what you're hearing in your head, so you might struggle to put it to paper. For a basic example from the Beatles, take the first line of the chorus for Yesterday, "Why she had to go". The melody holds the same pitch for the first two notes "why" and "she", but the bass is descending. If you know the song Yesterday, you can probably hear that descending bass in your head. If you can translate that to paper, you can transcribe songs. If you can hear songs in your head and transcribe them, you can write songs.
stadium 5y ago
It's possible to train your mind to do this. It's not just musicians who find their inspiration in dreams. Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali practiced naps while holding an object over a plate. When they dozed off and dropped the object, the clang would wake them and they could better remember their thoughts from the dream-like state moments before. https://www.fastcompany.com/3023078/how-dali-einstein-and-aristotle-perfected-the-power-nap https://www.fastcompany.com/3023078/how-dali-einstein-and-ar...

by mentos 5y ago

circlefavshape 5y ago

I've often hopped out of bed in the middle of the night with an AMAZING tune in my head from a dream, and recorded it on my phone. They've invariably been shite when I listened to them the next morning

reader5000 5y ago
I've somewhat had this phenomenon, with the added observation that if I listen to the recording multiple times it will "click" and will sound good again. Then I wonder if it actually sounds good or what.
GDC7 5y ago
> shite Yesterday is only good when you hear it in hindsight, knowing the commercial success that it had and under the influence of halo effect Honestly every song of that Level is. You have to put together a good album and it can make it to 100k copies sold . Everything above 100K copies is more telling about the luck and the scope of the promotional campaign supporting it then it says about the album itself . It’s a phenomenon you see in every field . Gisele Bunchen is beautiful but not 400M dollar beautiful Bill Gates is smart but not 170B smart The Mona Lisa is a great painting I guess but not 1B dollar worth Jesus was a pretty cool role model , but not a 3B devote follower type role model dictating that the world stops on his birthday All the above phenomenons rely on a mix of luck, vitality and as well as people not thinking about potentially buying into something that could be overrated and ‘overpriced’ compared to cheaper options which is the definition of halo effect
- tomcam 5y ago
  Jesus dictated the world should stop on his birthday?
  - GDC7 5y ago
    Well if he really existed as an historical figure (we highly suspect he did) then for sure he would not be displeased if he knew that the world came to a halt on his birthday and that he has 3B followers and not like Instagram followers who have an attention span of 1 minute, just the number 3 billion doesn’t really paint the whole picture . It’s the amount of waking hours that the totality of humanity spend thinking about him. Nobody even comes close . No king , no absolute dictator , no celebrity (modern or past). It’s power law on steroids Many of the 3B dedicate at least an hour a day thinking about him and the values he tried to communicate , and in a very deep way He was somewhat of a crossover between a magician , a cult leader an artist and a businessman self promoter so nobody can convince me that he would not the type to gloat about his success. And honestly I can accept that . I’d rather have promotion about love and compassion than the technoutipian futurism such as crypto Jesus or rocket Jesus . But as I said I have to point out that luck plays a huge role . So many people tried to sing the virtue of compassion and love via story telling but only Jesus broke out and became a figure with 3 billion religious followers
    - tomcam 5y ago
      That was a very long non-answer
      - GDC7 5y ago
        Short answer : He didn’t dictate it, but he’d be pleased about it. He was a human being after all, if you want to cut him some slack you can compare him with a contemporary Buddhist monk. They too have an ego
        burntoutfire 5y ago
        Too bad it's not his actual birthday, but rather an arbitrarily chosen day in year by the Roman Church to coincide with an already-existing holiday (winter solstice). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas
scelerat 5y ago
I write songs too, and this is often how it works for me. Songwriting is like any other kind of creative work. You come up with an idea, put it into some concrete form. That first recording. If it's shite, give it a minute and then come back to it with fresh ears and think about what you like about it and what you don't like. Take away the parts you don't like. Maybe you can think of something else that works with what you already like. Work that in. Evaluate. Rinse, repeat. Sometimes you just have to abandon stuff that isn't working and move on to something completely different. That's OK too. Just keep doing it and your output will get better and better. Even though it can be fun, in order to do it well you have to work on it. Your tenth song is going to be better than your first song, and your hundredth song is going to be better yet.
- circlefavshape 5y ago
  Hehe I'm kinda flattered that you think I sound young enough to dish me out some advice about songwriting
  - scelerat 5y ago
    I tend to entertain the notion that anyone posting publicly isn't posting solely for their own indulgence but to others' benefit as well. insofar as making stuff goes, especially art, I think there are widely held views that it either comes easy to you, or you don't do at all. It doesn't occur to some people that to be good at something (even something "fun") you have to work at it and put in time that decidedly isn't fun.

auspex 5y ago

What he’s talking about is when you’re deep into music, that small time between deep sleep and when you’re waking up you have almost a lucid dream where amazing music comes to you. The problem is right when you wake up. It vanishes. The “hit” song is on the “tip of your brain” … then gone. It happens to me and musicians I know. On occasion you remember one.

loydb 5y ago
Stevie Ray talked about learning amazing solos from Hendrix in his dreams, but he could never remember them when he woke up.
dhosek 5y ago
I tend to have two kinds of musical dreams: there are those when my fingers are magic and everything comes out amazing and those when everything comes out awful. I think I've managed to retain a dream melody once or twice. Recently I dreamt a poem that was absolutely amazing but when I woke up it had melted away even before I awoke. I have some dribs and drabs of it that I'm trying to reassemble into something coherent.
- Joeboy 5y ago
  Were you disturbed by a person from Porlock?
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Yes. Later the authorities determined I was merely a poet and thus not a concern.
bthallplz 5y ago
I have this happen every once in a while, and I love it. That state between sleeping and full wakefulness is one of my favorite things to experience because of things like this, hearing music, and also being much more creative. I've learned to stay in the state for a decent while - seemingly lengthening it from seconds to a number of minutes - by keeping my mind relaxed/loose. (The state of transitioning from wakefulness to sleep is also nice, but it seems less readily "useful" in this way.) As someone that wouldn't regularly consider themselves a musician, hearing music out of nowhere is super cool but weird.

conradfr 5y ago

In the Muscle Shoals documentary Lynyrd Skynyrd's guitarist says the two guitar solos in Sweet Home Alabama came to him note for note in a dream.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

Sometimes when I hear music playing in the distance my mind "fills in the gaps" and I hear a "new" song. I wonder if this is a related phenomenon.

handrous 5y ago
If I try, and focus, and am in the right mood, I get some pretty good-sounding symphonies, just kind of happening. Never any other kind of music. Which is weird because I mostly listen to various forms of popular music.
klodolph 5y ago
Developing that skill makes it easier to be a songwriter, but I think most people do it to some extent. One of the tricks is that sometimes when you hear a song in your head, it's a bit sloppy and has some blanks in it. Like, there may be a melody with a descending run, but it's not clear what the steps are in the descending run or which notes it starts and ends on. Another one of the tricks is that people typically focus on the topline melody, but if you hear a song in your head, you probably also at least "hear" the bass, or even other internal voices in the harmony. But without practice, you might not know that this is what you're hearing in your head, so you might struggle to put it to paper. For a basic example from the Beatles, take the first line of the chorus for Yesterday, "Why she had to go". The melody holds the same pitch for the first two notes "why" and "she", but the bass is descending. If you know the song Yesterday, you can probably hear that descending bass in your head. If you can translate that to paper, you can transcribe songs. If you can hear songs in your head and transcribe them, you can write songs.

stadium 5y ago

It's possible to train your mind to do this. It's not just musicians who find their inspiration in dreams. Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali practiced naps while holding an object over a plate. When they dozed off and dropped the object, the clang would wake them and they could better remember their thoughts from the dream-like state moments before. https://www.fastcompany.com/3023078/how-dali-einstein-and-aristotle-perfected-the-power-nap https://www.fastcompany.com/3023078/how-dali-einstein-and-ar...