Tag Archives: cooper

Lyrics and poetry and rhythm and subheadings.

Posted on 24 April, 2012 by Ardie Collins

Word-cloud of the complete Cooper365 lyrics.

This has been lingering about in my mind-tank for a while and I wanted to solidify some of it by writing it out. So I thought maybe I could write one of those blog posts I say I sometimes write. This could be considered a kind of advice post, but it really would be in the loosest sense of the word. If you’re interested in my take on putting lyrics together, however, then you’ve come to the right place. There’s even subheadings, guys. Subheadings.

So if you’re the sort of person that can’t stand context or long introductory justifications for why a blog post should be allowed to exist then the following jumpy links might be of interest to you.

Subheading 1: Why does this post you’re showing me even exist?
Subheading 2: Please patronise me by pretending you understand poetry.
Subheading 3: Are you finally going to talk about writing lyrics now?
Subheading 4: Can I go now?

Subheading 1: Why does this post you’re showing me even exist?

So there were a few things that prompted all of this mulch which is about to spew out in the form of a blog post. The first is a series of videos by Jonathan Mann that I was watching back when he was uploading them on a more regular basis where he was offering advice to people about how he writes a song a day. And he’s now been writing a song a day for over 1,200 days, so he’s pretty dedicated and in a good position to be dishing out this advice, I think. The second was a video by Alan Lastufka about how he writes lyrics. He was dealing more with the meaning behind lyrics and the basic use of similies and metaphors and that kind of thing. This post isn’t so much about that, it’s more about the actual process of getting lyrics down on paper. Read the rest of this entry →

Some Cooper365 Highlights

Posted on 2 January, 2012 by Ardie Collins

I made a video that was intended for the promotion of the ‘Perpetual Noise’ mix and in the description I started putting in some highlights. It got a little out of control and so I thought I’d also put them here as a kind of ‘link-dump’ post.

So I did plenty of other stuff this year, but these are some things that I’d consider to be some direct offshoots of this project of mine. I decided to write ‘Oh, hey remember…’ at the start of them all because I’m hilarious and nonchalant. Read the rest of this entry →

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Posted in Uncategorized and tagged 365 project, ardie collins, ardiecoll, Cardiff, Christmas, cooper, cooper365, Music, Project For Awesome, songwriting, thecooper365project, Toys For Tots, Vokle, youtube. Bookmark the permalink.

The Announcements. I Make Them.

Posted on 19 November, 2011 by Ardie Collins

Day 289 – Made In Roath

Posted on 17 October, 2011 by Ardie Collins

Yesterday I was at the Made In Roath festival in Cardiff doing a songwriting session of some kind. It was straight off the back of a Ukulele Workshop that took place in the garden at Deli Rouge. There was a decent number at the workshop, many total beginners, learning how to play the ukulele. Some people then stuck around and attempted to write my song for Day 289 with me. We managed the first verse and chorus and the first line of the second verse together. It was fun and we got a lot more done than I thought we would in the little time we had and with little idea of how I was going to organise it. Mark and Nick who organise the Uke Nights in Cardiff (and are part of the band the Fflip-Fflops) led the workshop and helped out a great deal with my workshoppy thing. I came up with a chord structure and then passed out paper so people could write certain parts of the lyrics and then we collected them together. It’s obviously not the normal way I go about writing my songs, so it was good to try something new.

I then performed the song on my ukulele last night (in what was my first proper gig) along with 2 of my other tracks on my guitar as part of an evening at The Gower in Roath that closed the festival. It went surprisingly OK. I was nervous, but not as nervous as I thought I’d be. I went with the same tactic as when I spoke at the Oxford event – I tried to ignore that it was even happening until I was up there. It proved quite helpful. I’m pretty pleased I did it, it’s something I would never have thought of doing last year.

To mates that might see this: Sorry I didn’t invite you – I just felt like I’d be less nervous if I didn’t really know anyone there!

Thanks to: Nick Canham, Mark Isaac, Kevin Day, Natalie Healey, Alan Jones, and Lizzy Birchall for writing this with me.

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Much needed firmer plans on this Video Album thing.

Posted on 12 October, 2011 by Ardie Collins

IF AT ANY POINT YOU GET BORED DURING THIS POST JUST COME BACK TO THE TOP AND CLICK THIS LINK AS IT’S BASICALLY WHAT I’M TRYING TO POINT YOU TOWARDS THE ENTIRE TIME.

As I’m hitting a point where I’m about half-way through the 10th month of this 365 project of mine I realised a couple of things:

1. There have been several points throughout the year when I might’ve muttered to myself ‘I’m almost there’ before having to correct myself that I most certainly wasn’t. However, now I feel like these mutterings are becoming increasingly truer. I am almost there.

2. This both pleases and saddens me. I cannot wait to finish because I’ll just be so proud of having actually done something on this scale. Having an idea and then seeing that idea through is just something I’ve always loved to do. There’s something great about having something inside your mind and then making it physical. It will, I think, be tied as my greatest achievement so far in this little life of mine (tied because I’m pretty proud of that novel I done). However, it’ll be really weird to not have to write a song every day. It’s become a pretty big part of my 2011 to make time every day between all of the other crap I do to sit down for at least half an hour and make something new. Normally it’s more than half an hour. Normally it’s late into the night. I am beyond tired this year. Read the rest of this entry →

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Posted in Cooper365 and tagged 365 project, ardie collins, ardiecoll, Arts, Bandcamp, cooper, cooper365, Music, Music video, song, songwriting, thecooper365project, youtube. Bookmark the permalink.

Ardie Collins