Makey Makey

Hard Drive "What is Love?"

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Dave Grohl's Grammy Acceptance Speech

"To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what's important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that's the most important thing for people to do... It's not about being perfect, it's not about sounding absolutely correct, it's not about what goes on in a computer. It's about what goes on in here [your heart] and what goes on in here [your head]." 

- Dave Grohl, after accepting Grammy award

Read more about his speech 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!

The Power of Hearing

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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!

T-Pain Buble?

I don't mean to be at all negative, but I just need to vent for a second. I really enjoy Christmas music and was looking forward to hearing Michael Buble's new holiday album (I'm a big fan). A few songs in, however, I found myself in disbelief about how much Auto-Tune was used on his voice on some of the songs. Seriously, if there's one incredible singer who doesn't need this robot treatment, this is the guy (to me, this is the equivalent of a professional bowler using bumpers). I prefer listening to an amazing human voice (imperfections and all) over a computer any day. Here's a sample:



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Writing Tools - SoundHound

Here's a little phone app that I've found incredibly helpful. Whether I'm trying to identify a song on the radio or the melody that's stuck in my head, this the place I turn. Check it out.



Keep writing,

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!

Technology - Means, not an End

Don't get me wrong...I enjoy technology. I'm the nerdy guy who whips out his phone at a moments notice to find an answer. My wife sometimes refers to me as "Google Brain."

I also pursue productivity. So when I come across a new phone app or computer program that claims to be the next big thing, I'm tempted to look into it. If I'm honest though, I'm falling into the exact trap that marketers want me to believe: "If you want to do great work efficiently, you need this product (oh, and yours is too old)." It's a lie. The video below is a great example of the frustrations that come when the technology we own is all of the sudden outdated.



It's important to understand something when it comes to technology--it will never inspire us on the same level as real life and will leave us feeling empty. As songwriters and creators, we don't need anything but the basics to be profound. I've seen great songwriters write great songs using only a pencil and paper. Everything else is just a distraction from the craft, unless kept in a proper behind-the-scenes role.

Sometimes we put the cart in front of the horse by seeing technology as an answer. Auto-tuning is a great example. I believe it started with good intention, mainly fixing wrong notes so that the singer's track sounded a little cleaner. But when a tool like this gets in the wrong hands, all of the sudden anyone can sing. (In some intentional uses the voice is obviously meant to sound like a synthesizer, but I'm talking about between these two extremes.) There is a middle ground in which the human voice sounds not-so-human anymore.

I go wrong when my focus becomes more on how efficiently or productively I can streamline a task rather than on the task I am actually accomplishing. Take this blog post for example. I have a system of logging ideas (I started this draft three weeks before publishing), taking pictures on my phone with Instagram, uploading those photos to Flickr and embedding the HTML code. Once posted, I blast out a message on Twitter, which is synced with Facebook. Then I back up the text in a Word document and start planning the next post.

Technology should never be the end, but only the means to a meaningful end. And that meaningful end will be inspired by the messiness and realness of the world around us.

Keep writing,

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!

Inspired by Nature

My friend Caleb, who is a biology teacher here in Tennessee, pointed me to this video as a follow up to the recent "Who Made This Cabbage?" post. It's amazing to realize that, as advanced as technology is, the best designs are often found in nature.

Keep writing (and noticing),

Ben

Digital Salvation

A bride is walking down the aisle during her wedding ceremony. Instead of taking in the once-in-a-lifetime moment, she pulls out her Blackberry and checks her email. Or maybe she's updating her status, as if noting her experience in cyberspace validates what is happening in reality.

This scene, along with many others (including a family of four sitting around the dinner table while mindlessly staring at their phones), are portrayed in a recent commercial by Microsoft. The ad humorously point out everyday situations where people get into trouble by paying too close attention to their devices. But as the saying goes, much truth is said in jest.

As songwriters, this matters. Big time. When distracted, we miss out on the richness of life - the very material with which art is created. We have to ask ourselves whether technology is helping or hindering our creative endeavors.

The devices are designed to take us into the digital world and, by default, out of the physical. But the former will always pale in comparison to the latter, because a computer can never fully replace human touch. The challenge heightens as technology becomes exponentially more integrated into our daily routines and increasingly more difficult to distinguish the real from the imitation.

We fail when we approach technology as an end rather than means to an end. However, like raccoons drawn to shiny objects, we still can't help but reach out for the latest technology, longing for digital salvation. And marketers know this about us humans. They also know that we as a culture have not yet come to understand how to appropriately embrace technology in daily life.

Even last night at dinner I found myself mindlessly checking my phone for anything new or updated, as if that were more important than asking my wife how her day was. If I'm honest, most of what I would come across online is just repetitive white noise. It's like some kind of drug my mind craves each day that never quite satisfies. Technology makes us feel as though time is short, yet encourages us to waste hoards of it staring in its face. At the end of life, all we will want is more time, yet my fear is that we are wasting a lot of it along the way.

A faster phone is not the answer, as Microsoft claims. Phones and computers are already "fast" enough to do what we need them to do, and it's probable that we will merely accomplish more menial tasks while wasting the same amount of time. Our understanding of "normal" life has already been altered to the point of uncertain return. (For you Dr. Seuss fans, Microsoft could be compared to Mr. McMonkey-McBean from The Sneeches, where he offers no true solution to the actual problem.)

My friend and co-writing mentor Gordon Kennedy says that it's not the technology that matters, but what you do with that technology. And often times I believe the best thing to do for our creativity is to put the technology away and see what's happening in the real world.

Keep writing (and watch the commercial below),

Ben

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