Q: whenever i'm in school i'll come up with crazy melodies and harmonies in my head but when i sit in fromt of my piano, nothing comes out. sometimes i can't even write my ideas down because they fade away so quickly. what should i do??
A: keep doing all this and eventually you'll find common ground. like dreams, the ideas want to come to you when you're not trying. that's why you freeze up when you are actually 'supposed to' have an idea. and why the ideas come so easily when it doesn't matter. these 2 opposing worlds (in-the-office, out-of-the-office) will probably always be disconnected like this. but the more you do both, the better you will get at both. for out-of-the-office, i think the game of capturing can always be improved. most of the time you are feeling like you are unable to capture it completely. because, like dreams, the best ideas probably happen when you are entirely not trying, and entirely not thinking nor worried. and as soon as you start worrying about capturing it, that will begin to degrade the idea. but i'd say over time you can just about get the hang of it with minimal degradation. And for the in-the-office experience, there are hopefully some things you can do to settle in and get more comfortable. I'd recommend starting out by playing/writing bad things on purpose, to try to take the pressure off. play at least enough to forget you're there. that should hopefully put you back in the proper carefree state