The Helpfulness of singing!

Well recently I've found myself composing alot of stuff ( in Noteflight.com http://www.noteflight.com you can go there sign up and look for Coolnama to listen to my stuff,I write it in standard notation and it plays it back) and I thought it was cheating because if I didn't know how to write down a complicated rhythm I would just try it a few times until I got the rhythm that I wanted for a specific line or accompaniment part.

But cheating or not, whenever I am playing something that I think would make a nice song, I sing the melody,not really sing just hitting the tones that are in my head with my voice and then while singing find those tones on my guitar and then write them down. First it took like 2 or 3 minutes to find the notes now its almost instantaneous. I would like to say it is all ear, but my process is a little bit more complicated, I check out what tonality my song is in and think of what the note I'm singing is ( the 2nd the 3rd the 4th the 5th ) from how it sounds, then I intone with my voice find on the guitar, once I've got that its easy to build the line that was in my head one one string, then once I know what notes they are I find different fingerings to play it in, just in case I'm ever playing it on a different guitar that doesn't allow for smooth play on the higher frets.

Now I write it on Noteflight, and add a bass, usually the melody is a wind instrument: trumpet or Sax because I love how they sound, and maybe some drums depending on the song, usually the trumpet( or sax) has an odd combination of 16th and 32th notes and silences that I have to try and write until I figure it out.

After this I make an arrangement for myself if the trumpet part isn't out of my range ( which to be honest Idk what type of voice I have o.o but I don't think I could go very low or very very high ). Or I will simply have to wait until I have a Trumpet playing friend.

Now sometimes this can take me a whole weekend, just writing everything in the program and writing all the parts, but most of the time all the pieces fit, its like a puzzle and as I write the different parts they all interlock and fall right into it.

So how has singing helped me you might ask ?

Well in my solos mainly; since I can play what is in my head I can, essentially, sing with my guitar. Most of the time what is in my head is something slow and "melodic", it sounds nice.

And it has also helped me in my singing, since I've been doing it more it has been getting better, I'm not any good ( I think ) but atleast I can hit the tones in tune xD.