Musical Imagination and the License Number of that Car...

I don't know if I'm a composer, my guitar teacher recently had me writing songs and a couple of them got finished and turned into actual, whole compositions, but I do have little tunes that run through my head, often.

I've been trying to record them, using the voice recorder on my phone, but that's not what they sound like in my head.  Sometimes they have a sense of full orchestration.  They are usually little melodies, but sometimes when I try to sing them into the phone, I can't figure out how to get from one note to the later one.  It feels quite distinct in my head, but the details sometimes don't come out right on the recording.

If I listen more carefully, sometimes I can get it.  I am definitely just listening, not making any conscious decisions, so I know that, so far, composition does not come from any intentional part of my brain.

I was thinking the other day, thought, that the little tunes seem to have a specific tonality, but when I attend, I can't tell what instrument it could be.  The sensation of the interior song seems quite specific, but the tones are made by no specific instrument or voice.

How can this be?  Well, pretty easily.  Imagination, I know from grad school, is often indistinct on details, even though it seems quite whole.  I remember very well a Professor of mine in a grad school seminar on either John Locke or the Philosophy of Mind, because I took both from him, he made the point by having us imagine a car, really try to see it, imagine it in detail, get a vivid mental picture, and then he asked us, what's the license plate number?  Of course, none of us had an answer.  But our imaginary cars didn't have an empty space where the license plate would go; they weren't blurred out like you see on reality television; they were just indistinct, indeterminate.

So the tonality of the little tunes in my head.  I know they're coming from some kind of creative musical engine inside my brain, and they seem so specific and complete, but when I try to whistle or sing them into the phone, the indeterminate details become evident.  They are like compositions from a dream.