How to improve your "musical" memory?

Did some of you ever get into a situation where you are taking a walk or driving your car or whatever, and suddenly this really cool idea or a melodic passage with all the harmonics and everything just pops into your head? And then you get your dictaphone and hum it so you dont forget it, you get home, play it and suddenly it sounds rubbish to you, and you totally don't remember how it sounded in your mind just a couple of hours ago. It's really frustrating for me, I usually get inspired when I am taking a walk and I lost many good ideas this way.

Any advice on this?

I have two things to point you to in response to this:

The first is a TED talk where the speaker addresses this precise situation towards the end of her (extremely engaging) discussion: Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

The second is a book which, among many other fascinating things, delves into why this happens...I will get back to you with an Amazon link once I remember the bloody title *brain fart*.

Practical advice though? Get yourself a small score notebook and immediately sketch out the melody and chords or whatever comes to you, so that when you return to it later, you have more than just the melody — you have some of the supporting material that made it so awesome in the first place. :)

The more ear training you do, the better you'll be able to remember things.

I have been in a worse situation, not walking or driving but dreaming, I've heard good things while dreaming but then in the morning, it's mostly gone...

Methods to increase memory abilities ... do they work (or help) for that too ?

Ear training, I do agree.

However writing works instantly.

Once you write it, it is there to stay.

Your interpretation may stray, to only come another day.

yeah, but the thing is, I do most of my composing kinda by ear, or feeling. So i'm never sure if i write it first did I wrote what I heard in my head. I get it right sometimes, but most of the time I end up messing it up by a whole step or so... That's is partly due my lack of skills in transcription. I can read notes pretty well, but I never really wrote anything before trying it out on an instrument. Actually now when I come to think of it, maybe that's what I need to practice. Wow, you just helped me in a whole other way guys :D

Send yourself a voicemail message right at that moment. I've done this a good few times, and it really comes in handy...just phone your own number and leave a message.

I find it's easier to remember stuff if you've got... argh, words fail me. Not "context," but that's a word similar to what I want. If I come up with a nice melody walking down the street, I'll remember it far better if I fix some little aspect in my mind: "it's in 5/4 time" or "it starts with a 3/3/2 pattern," or "it starts the third"... anything you can do to contextualize your musical idea, anything that'll spark your memory if you don't maintain the melody exactly.

Do ear training and carry a music notebook so you can write it down. Pretty unique advice, eh?

I just hum it on and on... till i get home and i start playing it and then i change smth there and there... and after a while it doesn't even sound as in the beginning. So then I try remembering the original idea but it's long gone in the shadowy corner of my brain :( rotting and decomposing. And then i write a funeral march :D