Q: what do you do when you have an idea on a new song or a melody, but you're not in a setting where you can record something?
A: it depends what you mean by record, but i can overcome almost any restriction. for example if i have no instrument but i have my phone, i can explain how it goes, sing it and explain any necessary contextual info to understanding what it's made of. if i absolutely cannot speak or make any sound, i could use staff paper but 99% of the time if i can't speak then i am likely in a situation with no staff paper. but i have a number system i can use to write melodies on paper without staffs, but let's face it, paper and pencil wouldn't usually be available unless i could speak. so really in that case we're talking about phone text. i do have a system of fully writing down melody, lyric, and chord information using only phone text. unfortunately it takes 3 full lines of information just to convey 1 line, plus any additional descriptive info needed, plus autocorrect kicks your ass on that stuff, but it can be done. it's rare that i would need that, and typically that gets used the most on airplanes. in the rare situation where i have absolutely no writing device available (no phone, etc), then i would need to engage in deep mental communication activities to try to remember the situation from as many angles as possible (in other words, pretend i wrote it down and imagine every logistical aspect of what that would contain, and imagine explaining it to someone else who knew nothing about it) and keep analyzing it in different ways until the documentation tools become available, which usually would not be that far in the future. but most of the time there is at least voice memo or phone text available