About

My Musical Journey

Let me tell you a little about me, and about what music has meant in my life.

I started playing music in 3rd grade, with the violin, but unfortunately it didn’t stick. To this day, I wish I could play violin, but I wasn’t ready. In fifth grade, I tried again, this time with the trumpet, and stuck with it, playing in the school band throughout elementary and middle school. In the eighth grade, my band director asked for a volunteer to play tuba on a specific piece (I don’t remember what it was called), and I jumped at the chance. I began meeting with him before school several days a week until I’d become competent on the instrument, and then ultimately made the switch full time (although I continued to play trumpet in the school’s jazz band). The switch to tuba was the beginning of my lifelong fascination with the low end of musical compostions.

In high school, I continued to play the tuba in both concert and marching band all four years, and one year even made the all-state band. But I also discovered a a new love that would soon consume and redirect my passion for music. I discovered punk rock, and immediately fell in love with its energy. When I was fourteen, I formed a band with two friends that was to last throughout high school. At first, it was terrible, as most first bands are, but a lot of fun. Although we were all marching band kids, and not new to music, none of us knew how to play rock instruments, and we mostly just made it up as we went. At first, I started teaching myself guitar on my mom’s beat up old acoustic, but quickly switched to bass as my primary instrument, because that’s what the group needed, and also because my experience on the tuba had taught me quite a lot about building basslines, which I now dove into headfirst.

Once I committed to the bass, I also committed to becoming the best musician I could, and that meant private lessons. I started working with a teacher once a week, which quickly became twice a week as I started to discover the magic of music theory. I devoured everything my teacher gave me, and my understanding of the inner workings of music grew. I played for at least an hour a day, and also started applying what I’d learned to the guitar, making sure I understood that as well as my primary instrument. I got better, the band got better, I started writing and composing. By the end of high school, I was an excellent bassist, a decent guitarist, and had started to teach myself piano.

When it came time to apply to college, I seriously considered going for a composition degree, even visiting the Oberlin College conservatory, but ultimately decided to major in History and Political Science at Hanover College, but I used as many of my electives as possible taking theory and composition courses, which quickly led me to realize I needed formal training on the piano. So I took private piano lessons through the college’s music department throughout my time in undergrad. I even returned to the tuba for 1 semester my senior year, and participated in the college’s concert band.

During my college years I played bass, as well as occasional trumpet and lead guitar, in a band called Eighty3. Once I even played drums for the band when our drummer got sick and we found a fill-in bassist but not a fill-in drummer, which is a thing I’m glad I did but probably wouldn’t do again. It was during these years that I produced some of the music I’m most proud of, co-writing with our lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist, one of the most gifted and prolific songwriters I’ve ever met. She wrote beautiful melodies and lyrics set to simple chord progressions, and then the two of us would sit down with a pair of acoustic guitars for hours developing the potential hidden in each simple skeleton. It was some of my favorite musical work I’ve ever done. During our brief time together the band produced two full length albums, “Going Crazy Places,” and “Dead Fish and Cigarettes,” as well as an EP, “An Offer I Can’t Refuse,” which is a rate of output I still marvel at.

After college I moved to western North Carolina for grad school in history, and fell in love with Appalachian folk music. This was the one time in my life when I played more guitar than bass, and studied the unique forms and sounds of a music I had never been exposed to growing up. There is a particular open tuning I learned that is still my preferred setup when playing or writing on the guitar. Although I found time to play bass in two different punk bands while there, most of my time was spent in informal jam sessions with some of the most talented and creative musicians I have ever met, in an extremely tight knit community built around informal collaboration and shared musical experience.

After far too brief a time in the mountains, I moved again for still more school. This time to Jersey City, and it was here I started teaching instrumental music. At first it was simply a way to make a side income while I put myself through school. Music was a skill that I had and could sell. But I soon realized that I loved teaching music almost as much as I loved making it, and the experience helped me to grow musically. Gradually, as word of mouth referrals brought more and more new clients, teaching music took up more and more of my time and provided more and more of my income until finally, in early 2019, I decided to stop teaching college history, and dedicate myself to teaching music full time.

Without a doubt, teaching music has made me a better musician. Regularly teaching theoretical concepts has helped to solidify my own conception of them, while the discipline of teaching has forced me to be equally disciplined in my own practice. Right now, I’m working on being a better jazz improviser on the bass, and on improving my travis-picking skills on the guitar. I’m once again playing in a band I’m quite proud of, The Creaky Steps, right here in JC. I even learned a new instrument (ukulele) specifically to teach it.

So here I am. That’s me, and that’s the wonderfully unexpected journey my musical life has taken me on. I’m excited for the future, and for whatever the next chapter will be, and I would love if you would let me become a part of your own journey.

-Sincerely, Ben