(Yes, your eyes do not deceive you - in this day and age, a Windows 98 system.) If you write the notes down, I guess it's simpler to just change the instruments, and get something worthy out of it.
Composing is one of those activity which does not require any physical movement at all. You can be zoning out when people are talking to you because you're trying to figure out whether to use option A or B in a melody. You can write a song while fucking* or masturbating, or, most commonly, bathing. But the downside is that writing them down and getting them right is much more trouble than getting the concept in your head. (I'm sure that's also the case with writing programs, where it takes seconds to get that flash of inspiration to make your code work, and hours of debugging and testing to make sure that you've done everything correctly.)
The other downside is that you can tell other people that you've written 20 songs, but unless you write it, and perform it, since it also takes time and trouble to sight read, you can't show the fruits of your work.
Lyrics are a concern. I have not written lyrics. If I like a tune I've written, I'd be concerned about messing it up with shit lyrics. Song titles are another concern, so I've given them provisional titles, some of them are names of roads where I was walking on when the song popped into my head. Song titles that I am satisfied with, like "Pigeons on Steroids" or "Dance of the Strange Attractors" require a bit more thought, but I'd now shorten the latter to "Strange Attractors". It will come as no surprise to find that when I named "Strange Attractors" I was taking a course in chaos theory.
This is only step 1 of my grand plan to enter the local music scene in a fine way, become a rock star, and get all the chicks I want. That ain't workin', that's the way you do it. It's been in the works for quite some time. I wanted to be a rock star when I was 15 and started listening to Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie but I think, I'd prefer to do it without the drugs, and prefer to live a long life like David Bowie. I wrote my first song at 8 which means I have more than 20 years of songwriting experience.
We have come a long way from the time when the Oddfellows and Humpback Oak were begging Roxy and Da Da music to stock their tapes, when Opposition Party and Convent Garden were breaking the eardrums of the very few who heard them.
When you write music, you're usually wondering if it's good enough. Something you wrote yourself usually sounds slightly better than how other people would view it, so you got to correct for it. Then there are questions about how hard you want to work to propogate that music.
If you composed it, will you write it down? If you write it down, will you demo it? If you demo it, will you get a band to play it, or at least produce it? Will you record it? Will you perform it? If you perform / record it, will you promote it, and go through all the grind that musicians have to perform? Or do you just sit back and be a career songsmith, and give your music to other people who look better than you to work it? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Also: One of Singapore's best bands, Humpback Oak has a myspace site. Concave Scream, another great Singapore band, also has one.
* imagine if you will:
her: oooh baby.
her: oooh I'm getting real hot here.
her: oh you're great, pushing all the right buttons here....
him: yeah baby.
her: You could ride me a long time.
him: hold it now.
her: hey, wait! Where are you going?
(he gets up, starts looking for pencil and paper, and then scribbles some notes down.)
her: what the fuck man.
(10 minutes later)
him: honey I'm back.
her: better learn how to masturbate now. (rolls over and goes to sleep.)
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