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.



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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!

Writing Tools - Messenger Bag

I've had a lot of people compliment me on my leather laptop bag. I've found it to be the best bag I've ever used to accommodate the writing lifestyle, and it feels like it's going to last for quite some time. Check it out!

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!

Bootstrapping

When it comes to being your own boss, it's important to use every resource you have to its full potential. Take this blog for example. To this day, what you see has only cost me a total of about $12.

I registered the domain address on GoDaddy.com: $12.
I registered the Blogspot address thesongbirdproject.blogspot.com: Free.
I registered the Gmail address thesongbirdproject@gmail.com: Free.
I designed the header myself on pixlr.com: Free.
I painted the bird logo myself: Free.
I take pictures using iPhone's Instagram app: Free.
I record videos and post them to YouTube: Free.
I post links to photos from Picassa (Google's Flickr-like service): Free.
With permission, I use photos from Flickr's Creative Commons: Free.
To post songs, I've used a service called OpenDrive: Free.
To back up Word documents of lyrics, I use Dropbox: Free.
The blog is supported by Google and Amazon adds that can earn me money: Free Money.

Really, the main cost is the time and effort it takes to post. 

When it comes to songwriting, this means there are ways to find inspiration without letting it hurt your wallet. I was flipping through Wired Magazine a few months ago and came across an interesting photo by Caleb Charland. The first thing I did was Google his name, click "images" and all of the sudden I had hundreds of his photos there in front of me. And what did it cost me? Nothing. Also, the public library is an incredible resource for free books and movies (as long as you remember to return them on time). It's also common to work out trades with other creative friends for recording time, press photos, design work, etc.

Recently, Dr. Jeff Cornwall (head of Belmont University's Entrepreneurship major) featured The Songbird Project on his blog. Read it here.

Keep writing (and bootstrapping),

Ben

P.S. - I literally bought these $200 boots from Goodwill for $3.99. How's that for literal bootstrapping?