Fast Company: How to Lead a Creative Life

See full-size infographic here.

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

Dalton Ghetti - Dedication to Art

I was perusing the world of Facebook this morning and came across an image of a pencil that was posted by Raw Vision. What's so exciting about a pencil? Ask Dalton Ghetti, who sees them as a medium for art.

All it takes to do something artistically innovative is the ability to see the common world around us in a new light. For example, here's the alphabet:

Alphabet, 2005. Dalton Ghetti (b. 1961). Pencil and graphite. Collection of the Artist.

And here is one single pencil held together by the lead, carved into a continuous chain:

 Chain, 1997. Dalton Ghetti (b. 1961). Graphite and wood. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo courtesy of Sloan Howard.

There is also more about his work on the New York Times website here.

Keep writing (and carving pencils),

Ben

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

The Sartorialist

Scott Schuman has an eye for finding beauty in everyday life. He's got some great things to say about capturing and sharing that beauty through his blog, The Sartorialist. Welcome to his "digital park bench."

Keep writing (and people watching),

Ben

How Deeply is Music Ingrained in Us?

Guest Post on MakeItInMusic.com!

Click picture to read post. In the spirit of combining words, what you see in this post is a "clickture."

The Beauty of How Ink is Made

When I first came across this video, I thought, "Do I really care how ink is made?" But as I watched the film, all of the sudden I found myself caring a lot about how ink is made. This filmmaker found beauty and life in what others may pass right over. And isn't it the same with writing songs? We make something everyday become something epic.

(This film is best viewed in full screen, high definition.)


Keep writing,

Ben

Feature in Fringe Magazine!

If you're in Nashville and happen to pick up a the most recent copy of Fringe Magazine, you may see a familiar face. Every issue they feature a songwriter in a section called "Hello, Songwriter," and I couldn't be more honored to have been selected.

(Written by Andrea Bailey Willits; Photographs by Maya Laurent Photography)

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Day jobs can be the death of your dreams. Not for songwriter Ben Cooper. 

Pulling off his green apron, Ben Cooper clocked out of another 4 a.m. shift at the West End Starbucks. As usual, his pockets were full of crinkled receipts where he’d quickly scribbled song titles and ideas between making mochas. He couldn’t wait to get home and sit down at his upright piano; then his real eight-hour workday could begin.

“I was working for the job I wanted, not the one I had,” Cooper says. “So I allowed for a 40-hour songwriting week by working crazy shifts at Starbucks.”

Barista by day, songwriter by night—it was the most exhausting year of Cooper’s life. But in late 2008, the Belmont graduate from Fort Wayne, Ind., inked a publishing deal with Writer’s Den Music Group and quit steaming milk. Two years later, he’s happily doing what he loves and just landed eight cuts on bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs’ new record, Mosaic...

Read the rest of the interview here, beginning on page 55.

And be sure to check out fringemagazine.com.

Keep writing,

Ben

Fun With Words - "Doggles"

Just came across this picture in a catalog...

Who Made This Cabbage?

We were making dinner a couple nights ago, and I couldn't help but see a pattern in front of me.

Keep writing (and noticing),

Ben

 

 

Photo by fdecomite (on flickr). Used with permission.

Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video. Used with permission.

Photo by Ethan Hein. Used with permission.

Bohemian Rhapsody Violin Quartet

Here is a great example of how music can stand the test of time, and also cross over genres and styles. Queen wrote many songs that are almost impossible for anyone to cover, mainly because their versions of songs were so creative and unique. Few can do them any justice.

But here's someone who did do justice with his cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Four single takes made up this entertaining and beautiful video.

Keep writing,

Ben

Vivian Maier, Street Photographer

A helpful reminder that we are all capable of creating great work.

Read more about Vivian Maier and see more of her photos here.

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

Caliente!

Yesterday my family had lunch at a little Cuban restaurant in Fort Wayne called "Caliente!" It boasts some amazing sandwiches and was started by a couple from Cuba. Halfway through the meal my mom basically said, "Did you know that the husband is a former journalist who was thrown in jail for what he wrote?"

It was a healthy reminder that I too often take freedom for granted. I can blog or write a song about pretty much anything I want to, without any fear of police showing up at my door. Like good health, we often don't notice it until it's gone.

Keep writing (and be thankful),

Ben

"Winter Light" by Tim Finn

Here is a live version of one of my favorite songs to listen to in the winter time. It's worth checking out the studio version (which was featured on Narnia's soundtrack a couple years ago). What I like about this song is the marriage of the music and lyric - the music feels like winter to me. Hope everyone had a blessed Christmas!

Keep writing,

Ben

Physics Meets Photography

Though on the surface physics and photography don't have much to do specifically with songwriting, inspiration to write songs can be drawn directly from them.

Here's something I found inspiring: photographer Caleb Charland looked at a common thing like a houseplant and used his imagination to show us that plant in a new and exciting way. And isn't that what we try to do as songwriters? We try to see daily occurrences with a fresh perspective.

Photo by Caleb Charland.

Here's the explanation of how the artist managed to create this image of a growing plant (as quoted in Wired Magazine):

The initial spark of a match. A nail as it jitters toward a magnet. A bud on a plant that’s poised to grow into a branch. These moments of inception are often ephemeral to the point of being undetectable, but Caleb Charland manages to capture them, turning those flashes in the mind’s eye into thought-provoking photographs. 

His latest endeavor (working title: Node Project) focuses on those points on a plant from which leaves and branches sprout. “Each of the little nodes—they just felt like they could be an armature for an image,” he says. To create the effect shown here, Charland spray-painted a shrub black, then highlighted each node with glow-in-the-dark paint. Next, he stuck the plant in a ceramic pot and rotated it under a black light, exposing a sheet of 4 x 5 film to an illuminated pattern of potential growth. As Charland puts it, “I like the idea of taking something simple and ordinary and making it mesmerizing.”

Keep writing,

Ben