The Joy of Books

This took commitment.



------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Artistic Leadership

Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership

 By John Dickson

------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Engineer Geoff Emerick on Lyrics

In Emerick's recent book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles he makes this observation:

"For some reason, I never used to listen to lyrics all that closely. Perhaps it was because of my taste for opera and classical music that the vocal always seemed like just another instrument to me. I was attracted to it solely for the way it fit in with the backing, not for the words that were being sung. Lyrics simply never sold me on a particular song--it was the overall sound that did."

I think it's sometimes easy to get too worked up about what the lyric says that how the message is said gets lost.

Keep writing,

Ben

------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

The Four Quadrants

While in the middle of reading Stephen R. Covey's classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and came across this incredibly helpful diagram.

He makes the distinctions between urgent/non-urgent and important/non-important tasks, concluding that the activities in quadrant II (top right) are the elements that give our lives meaning and significance. The challenge, however, is sifting through the other three quadrants to identify which activities are important but non-urgent.

Here's an example of a quadrant II activity my wife and I undertook this past weekend, repainting an old table and hanging three chalkboards:



Spend some time today focusing on the things that are important but may not be absolutely necessary. That reminds me, I also need to invite my neighbors over for dinner.

Keep writing,

Ben

------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

So Start Now

From Neil Senturia's I'm There For You, Baby; The Entrepreneur s Guide to the Galaxy

------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

The Unteachable

This is an excerpt from an entrepreneurship book I'm reading (I'm There For You, Baby; The Entrepreneur s Guide to the Galaxy, by Neil Senturia). Like entrepreneurship, it's hard to teach someone to be a great songwriter.



------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

What Is Not vs. What Should Be

While driving home from writing and recording yesterday afternoon, I heard a story on NPR about author Ann Patchett opening a new bookstore in Nashville called Parnassus. During the interview, she said:

"I think of this as my gift to the city: This is what I want to see in Nashville, and if I want to live in a city with a bookstore, then I'm willing to pay for it."

This embodies the entrepreneurial spirit. It may be easier to just complain about there not being a great bookstore in town, but it's far more rewarding to create one. I believe this is true for any artistic endeavor. Rather than criticizing what is not, let's create what should be. One piece of art is worth one thousand critiques.

Keep writing,

Ben

------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

The Music Lesson, Page 252

------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

The Music Lesson, page 103

An excerpt from Victor Wooten's book, The Music Lesson:



------

Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

The Music Lesson

I just finished reading a book by the incredible bassist, Victor Wooten. It's called The Music Lesson. Written in novel form, Wooten takes the reader on a journey that explores our relationship with music as human beings.

One of the main things that impacted me was the emphasis on music being so much more than just theory. Instead of focusing on the notes being "right" or "wrong," first be mindful of feeling the groove of the song.

Stay tuned for some excerpts from the book. In the meantime, you can grab it on Amazon here:



------ Would you or someone you know like to go on a songwriting retreat with industry professionals? Visit SongbirdCamp.com for more details!

Books for Backpacking

Songwriting: what goes in must come out. Reading is important for our creativity.

If you were backpacking through Europe for three weeks, which book would you take? 

Why?

A Week on the Links of Utopia

The truth about pursuing a craft like songwriting or a game like golf is that inevitably there will be days that you feel like you come up short. But our identity as creators is not in the quality of our most recent song (whether good or bad) or how long it’s been since we’ve even finished one. We use the energy of our artistic potential to pursue the craft rather than an individual song. As a result, we can enjoy the process without becoming victims of the foul advice of our own “shoulder devils.”

That’s what I liked about reading Dr. David L. Cook’s book (not a cookbook), Golf’s Sacred Journey – Seven Days at the Links of Utopia. It’s written in novel form, and is currently slated to come out as a feature film in 2011 (starring Robert Duvall and Lucas Black). I highly recommend this book to anyone who:

a) loves golf,
b) loves Texas, or
c) struggles with finding their identity in significant and fulfilling places (all of us).

The book emphasizes the importance of stripping away interference in our lives so that we can learn how to trust and rely on our instinct. There’s so much noise in the world around us that we often don’t take any time to thoroughly reflect on life. Gandhi is quoted as saying, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Very true.

As in songwriting, Cook emphasizes the importance of a golfer swinging with rhythm, freedom, balance and patience. We create the best art when we are drawing from our most natural place. The goal of this book is to help the reader break out of the box of fears and doubts that restrict us from being who and what God creates us to be. And there is nothing more exciting than signing off on a song that truly feels like it came from a natural place of integrity. Those are the successful songs, whether or not they ever hit the Billboard charts.

Keep writing,

Ben

Stepping-Stone Songs

Why end every post with the sign off, "Keep writing,"?

The best education we can get when it comes to writing songs comes by writing more songs. We learn from taking chances and failing. We learn from trying all over again. Songs are stepping stones.

For my parents the hardest aspect of what I do is the reality that most of the songs that I write will never be heard by the public. The reason this is difficult is because each song any writer creates has a value worth pointing to that shows it is in some way special and unique.

I had a good friend in college who was intent on perfecting his songs. Rather than calling a song finished and moving on, he believed that the original idea that spurred his song was worth spending multitudes of time on. He spent a couple years focusing on the same eight songs, and has since told me that he wished that he had written more.

A publisher told me once that there was a writer who showed potential, but just didn’t quite yet have the right caliber of songs to get any cut. The advice given to that writer was, not to go listen to a certain song or to specifically work on his rhyming or music, but, to come back after they had written 200 more songs. 200!

As crazy as it sounds, I think the publisher’s advice holds water. Over the past few years (after writing 200 more songs myself) I’ve realized that I've grown more from just writing more and more songs than I have from anything else. Only by writing more songs will I grow out of my mistakes. Rather than over-analyzing each and every song I write, I along with my publisher leave room for mistakes, which in turn spurs my growth.
 
On a side-note, I am more than excited that my alma mater is now offering a major in songwriting. My only concern is that students could enter and exit the program with a false assumption that earning a degree with the word “Songwriter” or "Songwriting" printed on it will translate into a publishing deal and a long career. If you go to school to become an accountant, you can go into a financial management company or a bank with somewhat of an expectation that you are qualified for a position. However, when it comes to songwriting, there is no conventional path to becoming a professional. I know plenty of writers who never went to college. In songwriting, every writer earns their degree from experience.

In addition to writing songs, however, I’ve found it incredibly valuable to be reading different books on the craft of songwriting. Here are some of my favorites, some of which I believe you would find valuable (there are links to purchasing these books by clicking on the "Reading" tab above):

          Modern Rhyming Dictionary - worth it for the 60-page introduction on how to rhyme.

          The Artist's Way - most effective way to get in touch with your creativity.

          Songwriters on Songwriting - a great compilation from great writers on great writing.

          Writing Better Lyrics - good, applicable exercises.

          The Future of Music - a speculation of what to expect as music hits new waves of technology in the coming decades.

          All You Need to Know About the Music Business - exactly what it claims to be.

I believe passion paired with enjoyment of music will be the cause of growth. So keep reading, and keep writing!

Ben