The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
Creativity. It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean? On the Syncreate Podcast, we share stories of the creative journey. We talk to changemakers, visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.
The Syncreate Podcast is hosted by Melinda Rothouse, PhD. She helps individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life through coaching, consulting, workshops, retreats, and now, this podcast. She's written two books on creativity, including Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities (winner of a Silver Nautilus Award for Creativity and Innovation), with Charlotte Gullick. She's also a musician (singer-songwriter and bass player) and photographer based in Austin, Texas.
The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Episode 50: Life Review: The Hospice Musical with Benjamin Kintisch
Benjamin Kintisch is a cantor, chaplain, and music teacher. He created a musical based on his experiences as a chaplain working with patients and families involved in hospice care, called Life Review: The Hospice Musical. We discuss his inspiration for the musical, his songwriting collaborations, and his pandemic pivots, as well as his involvement with songwriting retreats and teaching music to children. The conversation includes many gems of insight into the creative process.
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, we suggest playing with a different medium, specifically a visual art or non-verbal medium, as a warm-up to a session of writing or songwriting. More broadly, whatever your primary medium, try beginning your work sessions with a few minutes of low-pressure play in a different medium to get your creative juices flowing in a low-stakes setting, and see how this informs your project.
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode, you might also like our conversations in Episode 9: Music and Psychology: "The Pocket" Experience with Dr. Jeff Mims, Episode 14: Anatomy of a Song with Singer/Songwriter George McCormack, and Episode 27: The Spirit of Collaboration with Attorney and Musician Randy Langford.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!
Episode-specific hyperlinks:
Benjamin Kintisch / Life Review Musical on Instagram
Life Review: The Hospice Musical
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Dame Cicely Saunders, Founder of the Modern Hospice Movement
Show / permanent hyperlinks:
Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. And our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. We talk with visionaries and changemakers and everyday creatives working in a variety of fields and mediums, from the arts to science, technology and business.
We aim to illuminate the creative process, from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse, and I help individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life. At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. So if you have an idea for a project or a new venture and you're not sure how to get it off the ground, reach out to us at syncreate.org.
Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. So I am delighted today to talk with my new friend Benjamin Kintisch. Welcome, Ben, Benjamin. Glad to have you here today.
Ben: I'm so glad to be here.
Melinda: Yes. I'm thrilled. You're kind of like the perfect person to have on the show because we are talking about creativity, psychology and spirituality. And we'll find out in just a moment why that is so relevant to you and your work and your story. So for those of you who aren't familiar with your work, Ben is a cantor, chaplain, and music teacher, and he's also the creator of the musical Life Review: The Hospice Musical, which looks at kind of end of life issues based on your work as a chaplain and in people, you know, people and families involved with hospice, which I think is really wonderful.
Looking forward to talking more about that. And of course, you're also a songwriter and performer, so you're the main performer in the musical. And so want to kind of get into that. And I will say, you know, I was really excited to connect with you and, and talk to you more because I've done some end of work life myself.
I'm not a chaplain, but I've done quite a bit of volunteer work with, you know, care teams and people in that stage of life. And I, I know it's something that a lot of people kind of afraid of or shy away from, but obviously as a chaplain, you've, you know, gone right into that and you've found a way through this musical to, you know, bring out the creativity in that and, and bring the stories to life of different people that you've worked with over the years.
So I'm curious, you know, again, I know you've done a number of other podcasts and you've been talking about the musical and performing across the country, but, what have you learned about the creative process specifically in this context of working with people in hospice as a chaplain and then taking their stories and crafting them into this musical, this show?
Ben: So thanks for the question. I think, you know, you told the story just fine. And I'll retell it with an eye towards the a-ha moment, which is a big moment that you need to pay attention to when you're a creator, right?
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: It’s the idea, the spark. And then what do you do with it? So for me, I was a beginner chaplain, training in a chaplaincy program while working as a synagogue cantor in a small town in suburban New Jersey.
And I was visiting, as part of the hospice chaplain work, you visit patients. I worked at a residential hospice. Shout out to Center for Hope in Scotch Plains and Elizabeth, New Jersey. So I would go to this facility and go room to room visiting with patients at bedside. Part of the work is you sit, you have conversations. Hopefully you get some stories.
One night driving home, I was calling my wife and I said, “I think these stories want to be songs.” She said, “Get writing.” So that night, I opened up one of these, like, journal books, the black and white kind we used to have in elementary school. And I started sketching out the first ballad for the project.
Now, people ask like, are they all, like, biographical sketches? Not really. Some are kind of like thumbnails, some are reflections on a theme. You know, what was happening was I was swimming in the sea of stories. Ooh, that's nice and alliterative… love alliteration. But like when you're doing many hours of visits a week as part of your training.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Even if you're not a songwriter, you're going to hear some great stories. And most people who are not songwriters or writers of any kind, they, I imagine they would hear those stories, enjoy them for like, the richness of the humanity. But they might not use it as a jumping off point. A source material, as it were.
Melinda: Exactly.
Ben: But for me, it happened that I was a little bit of a songwriter. You know. Part of it is, I think the first step is believing that you are the creative person who might be up for this task.
Melinda: Yes. That is so important.
Ben: And then. Yeah, right. So I've checked the internet, so far I'm still the only hospice musical out there.
Melinda: [Laughter] So far!
Ben: You can check at the end of this recording to see if it’s still the only one. But for the time being, I'm the only one. Which means that despite the fact that there are hundreds if not thousands of hospice facilities and organizations around the world with all of the people who work for them, I'm assuming tens of thousands of people worldwide who work for the hospice movement.
They all know these stories. But I was the only one who thought, oh, these are songs, and those songs are going to be a musical.
Melinda: Yeah, that's such an important point. It's like seeing the opportunity, right? And then taking action on it.
Ben: Yeah. And step two, that's me opening up the journal book and writing.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Step one was having the idea. Maybe a little bit of encouragement from the spouse helps. For sure. And then, you know, in terms of my journey, which, should be said, it has been about ten years in the running, nearly a decade now since the first songs are sketched. And we have not yet made it to the Tonys. So we're still working.
But that said, like, you know, the joke is a flex on my foolish confidence, or if not foolish, steadfast belief in the project and its worth, which you probably don't feel in the beginning. That probably is earned after months or years with the work. And also having to kind of share it and present it.
And I'll get back to that in a second. But like, I think when it's just you and your journal book or your sketchbook, that's sort of early, safe, creative movement.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: The biggest critic you have to deal with is the internal critic.
Melinda: For sure.
Ben: When I teach songwriting, which I've done at some of these songwriting retreats, I remind people to move the pen or pencil as fast as possible across the page. The reason behind that, as a technique, is if you move fast enough, you don't have time for the inner critic to tell you that your idea is bad.
Melinda: You can outrun the inner critic, as it were.
Ben: Yeah, I think that's a good song title… “Outrun the Inner Critic.”
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: When you see, I don't know if you've ever seen these crazy YouTube videos, there's a guy named Harry Mack who's one of the most impressive rap freestylers out there. So if you're listening and you've never seen him look it up.
Melinda: Okay, we'll put it in the show notes.
Ben: And he's, like, professional level rap freestyler. So he'll go up to people and say, “Give me five hard words,” and then he'll do the thing.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: So I watch him and it's like very entertaining to me because I'm a hip hop fan, among other genres. And I appreciate the skill of clever rhymes.
Melinda: Absolutely.
Ben: But I also marvel at, it's, what is it? Tightrope walker, no net?
Melinda: Mmm.
Ben: I mean, I assume that for every video he publishes to YouTube, he records ten that go, like pretty good, but not awesome. So he doesn't publish them. That's fine. We all have the right to, edit and choose what to share.
Melinda: Exactly.
Ben: I guess I'm just mentioning him because, people who do things like, I'm thinking jazz improvisers, I'm thinking the people who paint at a party, like with people watching, and certainly the rap freestyle I just mentioned; they do this thing of creating in front of people.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: Which kind of escalates the pressure and maybe the showmanship to it because that's part of the show. Like, ooh. In fact, just the other day, I went and saw a fully improvised musical put on by the Baltimore Musical Improv Group.
Melinda: Love that. I've seen an improv musical here in Austin as well. It's amazing what they do. Yeah.
Ben: And you know, like some of the songs are going to be better than others.
Melinda: Sure.
Ben: It’s literally made up on the spot.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: So you can’t complain about sophistication.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: But I, as an audience member, I loved it. I'm going to try to keep dipping my toe in the water.
Melinda: You should. You should. I love this because it reminds me, actually, in a previous episode with Charlotte Gulick, my business partner, we've been doing these mini episodes called Creative Sparks, where we kind of riff on one aspect of the creative process.
And, and we had one where she was talking about, you know, in, in creative work, you have to have this balance between audacity and humility, right? The audacity to do it, to put the pen to paper, you know, to put yourself out there, but then also the humility to, like, ask for help, ask for feedback, to collaborate.
And I know you've collaborated on this musical on the songwriting. So tell us a little bit about that collaborative process.
Ben: And you cued it up beautifully with the word humility and partnership.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: And you need both because you can't, I mean, it's hard to imagine if you take the most famous songwriting duos of all time, Lennon-McCartney or Rodgers and Hammerstein are two that come to mind. Both of those examples, Beatles and brought old time Broadway, they're regarded as like kings in the field. And yet you can also imagine them having their little push and pull by the piano.
Melinda: Sure.
Ben: Or by the guitar.
Melinda: Yep.
Ben: Right. And it's kind of a crazy exercise, but I encourage those of you who've ever partnered or wondered what it's like to just think about like it's, it's a real dance.
I'm fascinated to imagine John Lennon and Paul McCartney like arguing over which lyric works and why.
Melinda: [Laughter] Yes!
Ben: They found their way and became one of the great songwriting duos of all time. But they also broke up after six years. I don't know.
Melinda: Right. Right. Collaboration is not always easy.
Ben: Yeah. And I think there's a reason why the majority of rock bands don't make it to old age like The Stones did. Like, that's the exception to the rule. Mostly because creative-artistic people, present guests included [points to self], are known to be a little temperamental and sometimes a little bit prickly.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: But with that acknowledgment, you know, ‘know thyself’ is a good rule for entering into any partnership, be it creative, marital, romantic, business. So I'll tell a little story to illustrate the point.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: I have two main composers on Life Review. I'm the lyricist for all the songs, and I wrote the libretto, Michael Miller of Rochester, New York, and Jason Spiewak of Manhattan and formerly of New Jersey. So Jason and I knew each other first. Michael joined in a few months later. So Jason and I, we had our first successful co-write where I basically I'd written the lyrics, shared them with him and he liked them, wrote up a song at the piano, shared it with me, I think in a voice memo.
And I heard it. I was like, oh, this is great. And then we scheduled an in-person co-writing session. So just point of explanation - if you're not a songwriter, you might not know some co-writes happen live in person, like around the piano, like you see in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical just a few weeks ago, it was amazing. But in this day and age, with internet and email and stuff, a lot of things are done pen pal style.
Melinda: Sure.
Ben: So most of the songs in Life Review I wrote them first in a journal book in longhand, then edited it in longhand, then typed it for a third draft, then edited that for a fourth draft, and then I would send it off to the composer and then get it back, like a, you know, a Christmas gift, Sunday morning, unwrap it and, hear the song.
Melinda: That's exciting. That's like a little surprise.
Ben: Exactly. So when those memo, those, text messages or emails hit with the completed songs, and this was over a year of back and forth, one song at a time, I think it might have been nearly two years that we were in active co-writing stage, the three of us.
Yeah. So there was mostly pen pal collaborations. At the recent songwriting retreat I did, I did a live collabo with Michael Miller for the first time, that was fun at the piano. But returning to the partnership story with Jason, our first time live co-writing at the piano…
Melinda: This is behind the scenes, like, what really happens in the creative process. What you don't see, right? In the finished product.
Ben: It's a great way to set it up because I think for those of us who consume creative things, the songs we love on the radio, the books we read, the movies we watch, it's so easy to forget the number of hours involved.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: Even for something as “little” or simple as a song. You know, we are a household that loves Taylor Swift. My wife and I loved her before our 13-year-old daughter fell for her, but we're not competing.
Melinda: [Laughter].
Ben: But, you know, now there is not just a commercial juggernaut. She's a very, very talented songwriter.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: And, you know, haters gonna hate, hate, hate. But, regardless, she's a very, very skilled songwriter. And there's a documentary on Netflix that, I think it's Miss Americana. It's like 5 or 6 years old, but still very relevant. And you see her, and she literally has, you know, books, got one on my desk because I usually have one nearby.
And it’s like, I mean, she might have some that are a little bit fancier than this.
Melinda: Journals…
Ben: But yeah, she's always writing. And I think a lot of songwriters, and my mother-in-law, who's a published novelist, often has a pad if she has an idea, maybe less so now, but when she was a bit younger, I think artists, visual artists often travel with sketch pads.
And it's not necessarily to like, flex their muscles the way you have to in art school when you're drawing 100 hands for homework. But because when you have an idea of an image you want to put that down so you don’t forget.
Melinda: Yeah. You got to get it down. I use the voice memos like on my phone, you know. When I like, I sometimes, I wake up with a musical idea in my head and it's, it's all about getting it down before you forget, right?
Ben: 100%. Yes. I've written several songs about songwriting. And one of them is called Write it down, write it down, write it down.
Melinda: Yeah [Laughter].
Ben: So I'm going to finish it without interrupting me again. So I brought him this lyric sheet, and I had a feeling that it was a good song. The idea was it was like a, kind of a dance number. Remember the musical set in hospice care or a hospice facility. So I wanted like an ensemble number. The name of the song was, wait for it, Keep It Orderly. It's like an okay song title. It's meant to be built on a joke about the word orderly, like the orderlies who keep the place clean.
What Jason pointed out was one, I repeated the punchline at least 10 or 20 times in the song, and he's like the punchline, isn't that funny, because no one uses the word orderly, am I right? He's like, that's a word from old movies.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: And I was like, you're right. But then I kind of went [mimics sad face] and I was like, totally crestfallen. And he said, hey. And he sort of like, got to scoldy tone that I didn't expect. I was like, what? And he's like, dude, we're partners. This is a trusting relationship. You have to trust that when I sit down at this piano with your lyric sheet, if it's good, I'm going to write a song, and if it's not good, I'm going to say, to quote him, “this isn't it.”
Now, “this isn't it” doesn't mean you wasted your time, right, or you're a bad songwriter. It's just it doesn't, to use his phrase, “when it's good, it rings the bell.” That one did not ring the bell. But he said let's look, let's look in the book for something else. And he said, “Do you have your book with you?”
And I was like, “Yeah.” And he kind of thumbed through it. Yeah exactly. I was still busy, you know, with my sadness. And he said, “Okay what about this one?” And we looked at it, I was like, “Oh, yeah, I think that's…” and he's like, “No, I think there's something there.” Now, it turned out that what he found, the main heart of it was quote, only a stanza.
Or maybe it was like one verse and one chorus. So it was like not fully complete, but he saw it had the heart of a good song.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Like, could you write another verse for it. Right. But he's like, “That's good.” And it turned out it ended up being an anthem of our show that's the second song. It's sort of like the theme song of hospice care that explains what, what the philosophy of hospice care is.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: And it's, part of what makes it good is it was written inspired by the words of the founder of the modern hospice movement. Her name was named Dame Cicely Saunders. She was a British nurse who cared for World War II veterans, and because of medical advances, the soldiers weren't dying as fast as they did in World War I.
So there was this new problem. So the advent of modern hospice care coincided with the postwar era of people grievously injured but not dead.
Melinda: Wow.
Ben: And then like, what do we do with these people who are not immediately dying, but we're not actually actively trying to save their life. We're trying to make them comfortable.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: So at the time of war, it might be someone with a serious infection that can't be reversed. You don't want to just, like, leave him. So you want to make sure that his pain is managed, his symptoms are managed, and so forth. Nowadays, because much of hospice care is far removed from the battlefield, we think of it primarily in terms of cancer and…
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: And Parkinson's and, you know, degenerative diseases or that kind of stuff.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Anyway, but the story about Jason is, is important on a couple levels. One, in a partnership, you have to be, it, you have to go into it knowing that you're a little bit vulnerable.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: And ready to move through the vulnerable spaces with someone liking or not liking your stuff, maybe like part of it, but not liking the other thing.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: If you can't handle that proposition, you should be a solo writer. And that's okay. The world is not demanding you to co-write.
Melinda: True.
Ben: And honestly, the apocryphal story of the bad song with Jason, I've told it now many times because I think it's, it, he helped me get through a very important moment as a songwriter, which is not which is not every song you write is good.
Melinda: Right, and you can’t be attached.
Ben: Even Taylor Swift, I’m sure, even though some critics said her new album was bloated because it was like a double album, twenty tracks…
Melinda: Right. Right.
Ben: Guarantee that woman wrote at least 50 songs, at least 50 songs in advance of that album.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: She has 30 songs written by Taylor Swift, that Taylor Swift and her people decided need to go in a drawer. I mean, maybe someday she’ll release it as a vault track. It's not like the effort will be wasted.
Melinda: Yes. And that is so important because, and we actually just talked about this in an episode that came out this week with Chris McKenna (Episode 48). You know, he was talking about screenwriters. And how do you get to be a great screenwriter?
Well, you've written a lot of screenplays before the one that maybe actually gets produced. Right? So it's so much about time in, right? And be consistently writing or, or doing whatever your creative practice is. And then, you know, around the collaboration piece. I think another thing that you're highlighting here is the importance of having that trust. And also not being attached, you know, so attached to your work that you can't, take feedback, right.
And incorporate it and be flexible enough to try different things, knowing that if you've got a trusted collaborator, they're trying to help you make it better, right?
Ben: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. You have to have a sense of trust and common purpose. You know, Jason signed on to the project and then subsequently Michael, because they liked the idea of it.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I think they both had some experiences with older people in their life who had dealt with end of life issues, as older people do. Yeah. And then once we were kind of on board together, we, we had that aligned purpose. I wanted to share a different story about feedback if I may.
Melinda: Sure.
Ben: This one is funnier. So, you know, I'm a theater maker and part of being a theater maker, I've come to learn along the way, is this process called workshopping.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: And, I'm sure plenty of your people know, but I'm an over explainer. So in the theater world, workshop is like a small production. For instance, the actors might have binders rather than memorize a script, or maybe just a piano, not a pit orchestra, maybe no costumes.
So in the real Broadway world, they do workshops for producers, but even outside of Broadway, all over the country, when someone's launching a play before they can stand it up for real, they often do a workshop. So I've done two workshops of Life Review.
Melinda: Okay.
Ben: One was back, eight months before the pandemic. It was at a national education conference, and that was, sort of a cabaret or concert style performance.
Ten songs with narration and about 100 people in the audience. It was well received. And then because it was a conference, I was able to find people like they see me and they're like, “Oh, Ben, I saw your show.” And then I'd say, “Can I sit and ask you some questions?”
Melinda: Yeah [Laughter]. A little focus group.
Ben: Yeah. Totally focus group of one.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I, maybe I had 5 or 7 of these conversations. They were so helpful.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: I also for that show I believe had a handout where people could give some little comments, which I gathered and looked at and, there was some very specific feedback from the first workshop. 100%, and no one ever agrees on everything.
Melinda: Of course.
Ben: 100% of the audience hated one part of my story.
Melinda: Right, so you know you're on to something there, right?
Ben: That's a, that's a powerful data point.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: Hundred percent of people not related to me or not in the project all agreed that the chaplain should not fall in love with the nurse.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: Because who needs a love story? Now, as a novice playwright, I was like, wow, love story, keeps it moving, keeps it interesting.
Melinda: Right. Right.
Ben: No one liked it. Zero people. Now, that news, because it was delivered lovingly in those interviews, along with a lot of kind words and in the papers, like it didn't hurt me, and I wasn't… You talked about being wedded to your idea, too invested, I wasn't too invested in that idea. So I was like, okay, cut it.
So five months later, I had a staged version, or not staged, but a more robust version with local community theater talent. We had a few rehearsals. It was, like, lightly staged. So, you know, okay, I'm going to stand over here. I'm going to move back that way. But no scenery, but for a rather flimsy bed.
We invited, risky as it was, question and answer from the audience. And, you know, question answer is sometimes delivered in the form of a diatribe.
Melinda: Sure.
Ben: Or a lengthy opinion piece.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Older gentleman, get the mic. He's our first questioner and he just goes, “It's tooooo long.”
Melinda: [Laughter] Okay.
Ben: And without skipping a beat, I lean into my microphone and I say, “Thank you, sir. Please be sure to put that on the comments card. Next question please.” Just like, what the, how can I say to that?
Melinda: Right, right.
Ben: And I, very nice, I had an ensemble cast supporting me, but I, I have cast myself in the biggest role, you know the lead.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: The chaplain guy.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: So I was pooped. Cause I was like, I did not want to hear you tell me that everything I'd worked hard for was too long. However, with time and distance.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: I came to realize he was right.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: There were some parts where the dialogue was dragging. And also it was reminded to me that because it was an un-staged workshop, there was no visual. If you think about going to the theater or even your local community theater, you expect some basics.
Melinda: Yep.
Ben: Some movement, some costumes, some lighting.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Some props, some scenery. At least some boxes, but often some flats or flies. I had none of that. So visually it was rather static.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I imagine myself as an audience member today with this understanding, I might be bored after 2:20. Also, the guy was a little bit older. Maybe he had to pee, I don't know. But that's feedback. By the way, my two best friends in the area shout out to Lou and Dave if you're listening. They bring this up all the time.
Sometimes they'll be seeing me, we'll hang out and they'll be like, “Hey, Benny boy, it's too long!”
Melinda: [Laughter] right?
Ben: It's our little inside joke. My friends were at the performance and they have not stopped repeating it.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: So that's my funny story about feedback.
Melinda: I think this is another really important point about incorporating feedback. You said after some time passed, then you were able to kind of, you know, you could take a step back. And sometimes it's hard to receive the feedback right after a performance, right? And you have to sit with it and go like -
Ben: Yeah, I don’t think I would do that again
Melinda: - Is this like, okay, this, is this, there's a kernel of truth to this.
And like, you know, with a little time and space, then you can meaningfully incorporate the feedback, maybe not right in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. So, sorry, go on.
Ben: Yeah, I think so. I've spoken about this on a lot of shows, especially those that deal with the creative process. I'm, I'm sitting here with my laptop on a desk and to my right is a drawer. It's a literal drawer, but it can also be a metaphorical drawer.
And, you know, you always have a choice to take what you've done and put it in a drawer.
Melinda: Yes. Yes.
Ben: In fact, one of the important pivots for my project happened during Covid when, you couldn't do the ensemble show and I had to pivot. And I had this difficult conversation with a wonderful creative coach named Alex Palting.
And, she said, “Ben, you basically have a choice. You can put this project in a drawer and leave it there until the world is safe for live theater. And we don't know if that's going to be six months or a year or two years or.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: Dot dot dot. And none of us knew, remember?
Melinda: For sure.
Ben: The choice was to put it in a drawer or to, pivot to make it usable online.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: And so what Alex suggested is, if you want to try, let's pivot. And what we came up with was condensing it, taking a show that was two hours and 20 minutes, smushing it down to be 45 minutes.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Instead of 16 songs, 8 songs, instead of dialog, narration. And that's how you get a one man show that I can perform from this space.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: And once that was done, it was tricky to write, but once I figured it out through the magic of digital piano accompaniment, I could. And you know, I played two songs live on guitar. The rest is digital piano. Bloop. That means I can roll out of bed, so to speak, and perform from this,
performing on camera during Covid, a one man show, I needed it. And sometimes, here's another creative lesson.
Sometimes when you're working with someone helping you along your journey, they tell you ideas about how to pivot or how to try something new. And you do not like it at all.
Melinda: No, no.
Ben: It took multiple expensive coaching sessions.
Melinda: [Laughter] Yes.
Ben: You know, if you work with a good coach, you pay for it. And I don't know if she was secret… no. She was not being sneaky about it, but I, I was hard to convince. And it took several sessions to, what if we just try it? And what if we find one low stakes gig? So we identified my synagogue where I worked, the place that would do a virtual blah blah blah. And because I was nervous about the tech, I hired, a tech guy just for that gig.
Now I do streaming like it's no big deal, but for that one it felt like I needed someone on hand just in case.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: And it turned out to be, I mean, in retrospect, it's obvious because everyone who wanted to do something at that time streamed and did new versions of whatever, right? But at the time…
Melinda: But making that adjustment. Yeah. It's a big adjustment. It's a big transition. And again, you have to be willing to have the flexibility when the circumstances require it to try something different. Yeah.
Ben: And I'm happy to report that not only did it kind of save me and the project, or that's a little dramatic, but it kept the project going nicely throughout Covid along with many podcast appearances.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: But it also helped me, you know, an important part of being a creator is creating and then sharing.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: So I was more or less done with the project. And so there was no new creating to get my juices flowing. So sharing it, even though I had to perform for this white dot. [in singing voice]: Well I've learned to make really good eye contact with the white dot it’s a skill.
Melinda: [Laughter].
Ben: Right. But eventually you, you get used to it, especially if it's the only show that you can do.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: So I did some gigs that were for small gatherings. I did one where they, a large eldercare facility, and they piped it in through their internal cable system. So hundreds of rooms, people in bed got to see my show.
And I did a death conference. Yes. There are conferences about everything. So a death and dying conference.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Did it in London. So I appeared internationally. Virtually. But that still feels exciting.
Melinda: Absolutely.
Ben: And it's also, another thing that, while we're sharing advice for fellow creators, the virtual stuff at the time was the only thing I could do.
Now it's a Covid keeper, right? Like, if I meet someone and they don't have the budget to fly me out to California, I say, well, you know, for X number of dollars plus travel and hotel, I can come to you in person. But if you can't do that, similar fee. a little bit reduced and then no travel expense for me to perform through the computer.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I'm not going to lowball myself too much, but, it's a nice flexible option and it saves people on travel.
Melinda: For sure.
Ben: And honestly, prior to Covid, I would have been like, hell no, I'm not going to be performing my show through the computer. But now that I know I can do it.
Melinda: And we're here today doing this through the computer, I mean, it's opened up a lot of new possibilities.
Ben: A lot of new possibilities. And there is the phrase that I've been saying a lot in the last few days, “Hey, you never know.”
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I think it's a good one for a t-shirt, like for optimism. And it's, it's good for opening up the book and letting the pencil or the pen move across the page. Hey, you never know what your creativity will unleash once, once you let the pen go.
Melinda: Yes. You, you're involved with, I think, putting together and participating in these annual songwriting retreats.
And so just given our limited time, you know, what is kind of the, the best thing to come out of those retreats, getting together with a bunch of other songwriters. And, you know, you kind of explain to me how, you know, you have different prompts or different like group activity. So, like, what's the best thing to come out of that songwriting retreat?
Ben: Well, the, the community of people who want to be there is the reason why you go to the place in isolation of real life.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I mean, I think that's the essence of a retreat. You go to a pretty location, hopefully it's pretty.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: And with a common purpose of creating. And then with some teachers or in our case, teachers and cooperative teaching. You can do the thing. But I think being away from real life is important because the majority of us are not like aforementioned Taylor Swift. If she wants to just spend some time writing, she can afford it. And I imagine she schedules it in her life as part of her craft.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Those of us who are not currently making a living at our creative endeavor, we typically create here and there. Nights. Weekends.
Melinda: Exactly. Yeah.
Ben: When it occurs to us. Some friends at this retreat, they tell me, like, “I only write songs once a year at this time.” But it's worth it for them because they're so happy. For others like me, it's a major boost. So I mentioned I did the live co-write with my friend Mike in person. We all have these.
We have prompts where we're given a task by yourself in a group. We have song swaps, which are kind of like open mics where everyone, a song shares.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Where everyone can share a song. And we also have something called My Two Shekels, which is like the Jewish version of my two cents.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Which is a song share with the expectation that you're inviting feedback.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: So the meta answer and I know I answered with a lot of words, is you go to a retreat to create, create, create in an environment full of similarly motivated people.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: And that’s super exciting.
Melinda: Totally. Yeah. Beautiful. And then I want to kind of end with, you know, you also teach music and creativity to kids, and we haven't touched on that as much yet.
But, you know, you're in a music classroom. And when we were chatting leading up to this, you were kind of describing to me, you know, some of those scenarios with the kids and so I'm curious, because, you know, part of what we're trying to do in this show is demystify the creative process and, and reveal that everyone has the capacity to be creative.
So how do you teach creativity and music? Like what's your sort of teaching approach or philosophy?
Ben: So honestly, teaching creative stuff is a lot easier with kids.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I meant, I was just describing the song retreat, songwriting retreat, so I teach songwriting to others there for, you know, a brief moment within the retreat.
Melinda: And that's mostly adults, right?
Ben: That's adults. Right.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Right. And that's a cooperative aspect that we're all teaching one another. Some do guitar, some do poetry, whatever. They are eager, but they have, they, the adults, even those who are self-identified songwriters, real, aspiring, future, current songwriters… they're inclined to create. But they have this loud inner critic that I alluded to earlier.
Melinda: Yeah, yeah.
Ben: Who wants to tell them to slow down. Who wants to tell them to edit. Kids don't have that. Kids are used to creating, creating. And actually I should qualify that. Many kids have a smaller inner critic.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: You meet children as early as kindergarten, even pre-K, who will start doing work decide it's not how they hoped and then destroy their paper.
Melinda: Mmm. Yeah.
Ben: My daughter, who's now 13, is a talented visual artist. She was one of those kids when she was younger, she would draw in pencil and erase so much the paper would eventually have a hole in it.
Melinda: Oh gosh. Yeah.
Ben: And one summer, which suggests, a terribly powerful inner critic thing… It's not right. It's not right. It's not right.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: One summer, when she was like 8 or 9, she did an art camp, and they made them drawn Sharpie or in ballpoint pen.
Melinda: Oh, so you can't erase.
Ben: You can't erase, and you learn to make mistakes and work through it.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: When you watch painters on the internet or whatever on the street, you notice, because it’s paint, they can't really erase. They just keep working through it. And when I teach adults, I have to spend more time reminding them to keep going. With children, the harder thing is to contain the activity.
Melinda: And the energy.
Ben: In the amount of time. So I’m one of those teachers, I have the little ones for 30 minutes.
Most children are more ready to create because it’s what they do all the time.
Melinda: And they haven't been, they haven't yet received the messages that, well, you're not good at that or you need to do something practical or, you know, all these negative messages that we get, you know, they still they're still open.
Ben: 100%. As an adult, mostly because I had a child who ended up loving art, I in my 30s and now my 40s, play in art a lot.
Melinda: Beautiful.
Ben: It's not to sell anything in a gallery.
Melinda: Right.
Ben: It’s mostly to get my mind going so that then I can shift to sitting down with the book. I’ve actually done that as a workshop at previous years of the songwriting retreat where we do some art stuff, and then I do a song prompt. And the idea, in the same way that an athlete does, like, jumping jacks and touching their toes to warm up, a songwriter can get their creative stuff going by doing creating in a different domain.
Melinda: Yes, I love that.
Ben: And I actually think it may be even more effective than a language-based warm-up.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: Because when you're a songwriter, you live in words all the damn time.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: I mean, I've never met a songwriter who doesn't relate to that feeling of hearing rhymes or thinking song titles. That's why we're songwriters.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: But playing in a new, sandbox, so to speak. I'm looking just beyond the laptop. I have within reach a whole bunch of colored pencils.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: I don’t typically color during meetings, but, like, if I need to, they're there.
Melinda: Yeah. [Laughter].
Ben: And I encourage all of you listening to play in some mediums where you're bad, or not bad – novice.
Melinda: Yes.
Ben: Maybe look up a local class. Or if you like learning through the internet, find a YouTube, you know, beginner art teacher.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: Whatever. Whatever the medium, I find drawing and visual arts accessible for an adult brave enough to start. Because even in doing something like collage, collage is wonderful. Or decoupage, which is like collage with extra shiny glue.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: You almost can't mess it up.
Melinda: Yeah. Something visual though. Yeah. And I love that. And so we usually kind of end each episode with a Creativity Pro Tip.
And I think that's a beautiful one that you just articulated. You know, if you're a songwriter and you're getting ready to, you know, do a session of writing, try experimenting first with some visual art. Or whatever your medium is, maybe get your juices flowing with another art form that is kind of maybe more low stakes for you, and then move into your kind of primary process.
I love that. So. Well, we are at time. It's flown by. But thank you so much, Ben. I know there's so much more to talk about, so maybe we'll have to do a follow up at some point. But really appreciate you coming on the show today. So thank you so much. And if people want to learn more about the musical or about your work, how can they find you?
Ben: Sure. Thanks so much again for the opportunity to be on this great program. For, the musical again is called Life Review: The Hospice Musical. Our website is lifereviewmusical.com
Melinda: Okay.
Ben: And Instagram @lifereviewmusical - same spelling, all one word.
Melinda: Perfect.
Ben: I’m really active on Instagram. So if you message me, I will totally write you back. And on the website, if you're curious to hear and see more about the project, we have some clips of performances as well as links to a ton of podcasts. So, if today’s yammer-yammer has not been enough Ben Kintisch for you, there's a lot more available.
Melinda: Yeah, you're out there on the internet, which is so awesome. So.
Ben: I'm trying, you know.
Melinda: Yeah.
Ben: It’s a little bit of, throwing, what - I love - I'm always in metaphors. It's throwing the bottle into the ocean. Someone's got to find one eventually, so.
Melinda: And seeing where it washes up. Yeah I love that. So thanks again to Ben Kintisch for being on the show today.
Find and connect with us at syncreate.org. And we're on all the major podcast platforms as well as YouTube and social media under Syncreate. We're now on Patreon as well. And if you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin with Ben Kintisch coming in from Maryland. Thank you again. And the show is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.
