In a songwriting context especially, any time I often here this discussed its very often an artist saying something like "Oh I just try to write what I hear in my head" like okay.. well what if you don't really hear anything in your head? Maybe I'm just not creative enough but I can say like 98% of everything I've ever written came from messing around on my instrument. I've sat for long periods trying to generate music in my head and it's rarely useful. Is this just something some people have and others don't? I find it a bit discouraging in a way hearing artists I admire say so often how they hear music in their heads and I just don't seem to have that very often. What about you guys?

I, Bud, don’t hear new melodies in the ole head but I do have lyrics come to me when hiking or mountain biking. Now my bride, Janice, always has fresh melodies galore in her head along with the melody of about every song she’s heard. I think you have to be hard wired for that!

J&B

"came from messing around"
This is one solid source

Besides the usual inspiration suspects, such as life experiences, friends, books, movies, museums etc., I enjoy collaborating with other people. Others can reflect on your writing in unexpected and rewarding ways.

I collaborate with lyricists but rarely music. I’m one of those hardwired for melody, I suppose, ever since I was a kid. Normally, I compose to a finished or semi-finished lyric. About 90% come to me while driving — if memorable, I get it down when I get to my destination.

Only when writing to spec under deadline do I resort to all the usual tricks: one note after the other, play with timing, duration and rhythm etc.

My most frequent collaborator writes to melodies that I wrote for other songs. Recomposing those can be interesting—can’t get away with rearranging the notes.

I'm one of those that hears melodies in my head. Putting the right chords around it is not that simple for me. As for lyrics, I would still be thinking about them by the time I die, and still wouldn't have any.

I hear you. Everything I wrote comes from either (a) messing around on my instrument, (b) hearing another song and thinking to myself, that sounds neat, what's going on there, then i start playing around, (c) humming.

I certainly don't hear melodies and then write chords to go with melodies either. I have a feel, a tempo, a guitar in my hand, a piano beside me, and a feeling inside (sad, happy, afraid of the future, angry at the world) that wants out.

I am new at BiAB but BIAB is actually a possible way to get melodic ideas. Having a full BIAB arrangement is the opposite of giving my brain space, but if I start with a full band BIAB track set and then mute everything but the drums, after a listen or two of the full arrangement, then a whole lot of corruptions of what BIAB played will now happen if I just start bashing on my guitar or my keyboard. How about the fact that the Ramones wanted to sound like the bay city rollers, and they failed up, so hard, that they created awesome music that's nothing like the bay city rollers?

You are where it starts. Your limitations. Your tastes. Your faults. Etc. Creativity is just a choice. You sit down and you do it. If you spend 100% of your time trying to write a new melody doing that with BIAB then stop. Get a ukelele. Unplug from your computer. Go stare at the sky and play three chords on a uke. Now sing and hum. Boom. A guaranteed way to get more melodic ideas is to use a mode you didn't use recently. Dorian. Mixolydian. Harmonic minor with a modulation to a major, if you didn't do that last week.

W

Don't try too hard. The harder I try, the more elusive it seems to become.

Just watch other people and write about what you see.

One thing I do when I have writer's block is to pick a style in BiaB then have the melodist and soloist generate a song. Now I have never had BiaB generate an entire song that I liked but I always get a phrase or two that I can rework into an entire song. You might want to give it a try.

For me, every phase is different.
Normal modus operantus:

• I hear (or read) someone say something that catches my interest.
  Most of the time it's just a short phrase that my brain immediately transports into a completely different context.
  It's hardwired, I can't really stop it.
  The idea for a song is born.
• I noodle around on my acoustic until something useful falls out of it, and bring those chords into BIAB
• From there, melodies and harmonies develop in my head (or, as you said, I 'hear' them).
• The lyrics develop when I walk the dog .... I am a dog-walking-writer

I'm a "write what you hear" guy, but have a process. I also have persistent auditory pareidolia, and hear music everywhere, even in white noise. (I'm not alone.) Often the music I hear sounds pretty cool to me. I lean on that.

My workflow:
1. Read the lyrics. I (almost) always start with a complete lyrics sheet. I've written lyrics before but dislike having the responsibility for "What does this mean??" My lyricist has an elegant response that somehow doesn't work for me: "What does it mean to YOU...?" Anyway, he's also a lot more talented than I am at lyric craft. So I yield to him completely.
2. Imagine what the lyrics mean. My lyricist is into ambiguity, so (a) he's no help and (b) I've got some leeway here. Sometimes I imagine a music video as an aid in interpreting the lyrics. A couple of times I've made this video, which is fun (and labor intensive).
3. Bound the music by tempo based on how many words there are in the lyric. I shoot for a 2:45 to 3:15 song, but those are just rough guides. I never remove lyrics but may recycle verses and/or choruses and/or title lines based on musical choices and avoiding the dreaded 1:30 song.
4. Find the "center" of the lyrics. Might be a chorus, or lyric, or bridge. But the song pivots around this "center". Ideally, it should roll off the tongue easily.
5. Look for an interesting way to sing the song "center" using a guitar for backing. I'm basically looking for a hook. If I hit on something I like I'll record it on my phone. My phone is my memo pad.
6. Repeat 5 and some of 4 with adjacent dynamic inflection points ("mini-centers") in the lyrics. I'm basically looking for a compelling way to tell both the lyrical and musical story from the inside (the "center") out.
7. Continue to work backwards until the lyrics are filled out with musical intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, outro, etc. At this point it's lyrics + solo guitar (live). But the song is done.
8. Until I listen to it and decide it's not quite right and go back to step 1.
9. Repeat 1-7 until I'm satisfied.

Then the fun REALLY begins.

When I hear a progression of chords, I find it easier to write a melody to match. But my latest song started in my mind waiting for a bus.

The impromptu compositions are sometimes the best! I've composed in the shower, while on a walk, and (rarely) while dreaming. Most of these are more original than what I would have written with a guitar. The creative part of our mind is very adaptable...

The best songs I've ever written happened when I woke up in the middle of the night with a thought/song in my head
It just appeared
I can decipher other music just fine (I hear it, figure out how to play it) .. but writing is a whole 'nother beast that I don't try to fight with.
It happens when I am relaxed mostly; trying to force it is frustrating for me

There are a million inspirations to start writing a song and a song only needs two things - Someone doing something and why they're doing it. For instance, a WALK in the Park and WHY (what/ who) reason they are there. Are you say hello to someone new? Saying goodbye to your love? Reminiscing about someone you lost? and on and on.

Are you TRAVELING down a LONELY road? WHY (what)?

example:
Traveling down a lonely road thinking way back when
Wondering how you and I got to be more than friends.
Thumbing my way back home
Never more to be alone
You can make all my dreams come true.

Our brains think in images. Three words can create an image of someone doing something and you can write nearly a page describing that image your brain creates from those three random words as to why or what they're doing.

River Lady Book

You should instantly see an image in your head just like a picture of a scene with a lady by a river doing something with a book. Turn that story into your song. Think "Ode to Billy Joe"

or listen to "Melissa" by Guthrie Thomas on YouTube.

i like chord progressions. i like tried and true cadences. Then i like to permutate them. Often i will look for a random element to "screw up " the ole 6251. When i'm really up a tree i will roll dice to generate a random new key center, then figure out how i can find my way home.

STARTING a song is easy.
FINISHING a song is hard.

Finishing a song only takes two things: discipline and limitations.

Quote

Finishing a song only takes two things: discipline and limitations.

Hey Byron, glad you agree with me

I agree with Charlie and Mike among others.

As Charlie stated, the key ingredients of a memorable song include a location and a story line and a dramatic arc.

Where are we?
What's going on?
Why does it matter?
What's the conflict or tension?

Next, what are we going to do about that conflict and tension??

This usually occurs in the chorus. Or if we're not going to do something we just tell you what we think about that.

The last line of this Chorus is typically the title of the song.

V

I was standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona
Such a fine sight to see
There's a girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford
Slowing down to take a look at me

Ch

Hmmmmmm.

Anyway, insofar is melodies are concerned, I am like Mike in that I write 90% of my stuff in the car. I don't have to think about the story structure because that's kind of in my bloodstream and I wouldn't imagine writing the lyrics to a song without having a story structure, or at least something compelling to say (a hook) if there is not a story line or location per se.

These lines just kind of pop out of my head. I carry stacks of index cards around and write song titles and chorus ideas down constantly, everywhere I go, every day, all day, 7 days a week. Even in church. At a restaurant. Everywhere.

But those melodies: I usually get them while I'm driving along in the car and they fly by my brain like a bluebird and I make sure that I have my telephone recording app within reaching distance so if I start humming or saying something out loud I can capture it.

Because if I wait until I get home I forgot what I was singing and then I want to shoot myself.

For inspiration, I create a bunch of chord progressions in the keys that I like to sing in with different styles in band in a box and have them on my phone as MP3s, in different grooves.

Like some are ballads, some are mid tempo, some are up-tempo etc.

If I'm feeling in a ballad mood I'll just press the trigger and start listening to something with no lyrics as I'm driving along and then start mumbling some words or singing out loud.

All I want is the gist of the idea and the melody.

I can figure out the chords later.

That in essence is my songwriting process.