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Brenton: Hello and welcome to the Brenton Peck podcast where we delve into people’s stories and the values that shaped them. Today’s guest is Ben Blessing, a musician, educator, and composer whose life has been shaped by both discipline and creativity. He grew up in Meridian, Idaho, playing trombone and euphonium, then joined the Marine Corps to play music professionally. Now he serves with the 25th Army Band in Boise and directs the band program for the Baker School District in Oregon. His compositions like Symphony No. 4, Grand Mosco, and Standhope Peak have earned national recognition and are published by GPG Music and Randall Standridge Music. Outside of music, Ben challenges himself as an ultramarathon runner, race director, and family man. Ben, I’m excited to dive into your journey and the music you’re creating today.

Ben: Thanks.

Brenton: Yeah. So, walk me back. You started in music when?

Ben: Oh man, there’s a picture of me at my mom’s player piano when I was just in diapers and there was this, you know, this little stool that it was, you know, it had a, like you could spin it up or down and I was sitting at it just as like a baby and my mom, God bless you mom, but she, she forced me to do piano lessons growing up like any piano playing mom would do. And much to her credit, like I grew up listening to her play a lot of great classical music like Beethoven and Mozart and mostly a lot of Beethoven. She could do the Sonata Patha Tique, which is not, not the simplest piece of music.

So that started when I was young and she taught me piano lessons, you know, up until at the time I was joining sixth grade. And then when I, I went into sixth grade, I guess I decided I wanted to play in the band. So I was a band director, my mom, my parents got me enrolled in the band program at Meridian Middle School where I guess I decided I was going to play trombone. Either were like, like 30 or 50,000 trumpets in the band, but like not enough low brass. So the band director was like, Hey, your son’s going to have long arms. It looks like so let’s put them on trombone. And I really didn’t enjoy playing music that much until that, until that year when I was in sixth grade. And then my band director, his name, Ed Beasley, and he’s still around. He lives next to that middle school. He very accomplished trumpet player and he would do these incredible things on the trumpet. And remember the, there’s this famous book that trumpet players, good trumpet players read out of. It’s called the Arbens book and it’s a book that’s about this thick and it’s all trumpet stuff and the solos that are at the back of that book, like they’re really, really difficult solos. And like the last solo in the book, he would play it and it would sound so cool.

And then he would do it again with one finger on his trumpet instead of all three fingers. And I’d be like, wow, that is really cool. But at the time, what I didn’t realize is that I had an absolutely incredible music educator in my life and a middle school band would go to festival and we would get superior ratings. And then I went to a high school band where I had Dr. Sean Smith, who is the director of bands at Brigham and Young University. I want to say down in Provo now, but he was my high school band director and it was the same thing. And, you know, I’d have 50 to 100 kids in my band class. And at the time I just thought that was normal, but I really had great music educators growing up and played trombone. And I learned euphonium in high school in tuba and I played trombone and euphonium in a high school band and in jazz band.

Ben: And then I remember my junior year, a Marine Corps recruiter showed up in my band room and asked, hey, who here is interested in becoming a professional musician in the Marines? And I had never thought about, you know, what that would look like or, you know, the thought really hadn’t crossed my mind, but I went and took it on audition, passed the audition on two instruments. And then they said, hey, you’re hired. So I joined the Marine Corps after high school and I played in the band active duty there for a number of years. I was a euphonium instrumentalist and like a lot of people that might be listening to this are like, what is a euphonium? Because not everyone knows what it is, but it’s like this, it’s the same mouthpiece as a trombone, but it’s a small tuba that uses valves. It’s got three on the top, like the really nice ones, they’ll have three on the top and like one on the side. And that’s what I played. And I’ve been playing in military bands for the better part of my career now. So really grateful. That’s kind of where I came from and where it’s taken me.

Brenton: Nice. So I think a lot of people don’t understand where like the military bands would play. So what did that look like? Did you travel around? Were you doing recordings? What does that look like?

Ben: So right now I’m a member of the Idaho Army National Guard. And when I was active duty, I mean, these are kind of events that happened a lot. You play at a lot of change of commands, which if you have, a change of command is like where you have a group, you know, it’s a military organization. They’ll have someone who’s in charge of it and they’ll put someone new in charge of it. So the old person can move on to a new assignment. And a lot of times they’ll bring a band to that ceremony to play and they’ll play stuff like the national anthem and they’ll play some marches, some music before the performance, some music after the performance and whatever type of music they want to use during the ceremony.

We do a lot of parades. Parades I’m usually working on the 4th of July or on Veterans Day, I’ll be doing parades for like military celebrations, Memorial Day, I think I mentioned. And we try to do a lot of public appearances because building good will with the public is something that is a special mission that we get to do in the military, in the band. And that’s something I really enjoy because it’s a really, it’s a really positive place to be at. And obviously unit health is a really big component of that. But you know, it’s a very special career that I get to enjoy. And being a musician is a very deep love of mine and getting to do that at the professional level has been really fantastic. So those are the type of events we do.

Brenton: Do you do a lot of traveling? A lot of military is stationed overseas. Do you guys travel or play over for the troops overseas? Do you just go to events locally and like now that you’re with the guard, is it just in Idaho or do you travel?

Ben: In the military, we, it depends on the unit. Sometimes you know, we travel like this summer, we, my unit, we traveled through the state. We did a bunch of performances between Boise and all the way up to Sandpoint. We were doing a big annual tour this summer. So in the Idaho Army National Guard, we don’t travel nationally or internationally alike. A lot of, some of the active duty bands will, but you know, there are musical units all over the place that are, that, you know, they, they’ll be traveling overseas or they’ll be playing at bigger venues. When I was active duty, I remember we played for a couple of professional football games. I remember we did a, we, I remember my first pro football game I ever performed at. It was the, we played at a Pittsburgh Steelers game. That was, that was a while back. That was January 2005, which was, wow, I’m dating myself there a little bit. And it was cold.

It was so cold at that game. Cause it was, you know, it was Pennsylvania. It was a, it’s Pittsburgh and it was January. So it was below zero and everyone’s instruments froze up. I mean, they tried putting some, some vodka in with the valve oil to make the instruments work, but that really didn’t help too much because everyone’s instruments still froze up. But that was a really neat experience. I remember there was a member of my unit that, um, it was from Florida that was a standing there and he was shivering so badly and he was like this really tough guy, but he wasn’t used to the cold. Like we get here in Idaho and then, um, another time we played at a Miami dolphins game and that was towards the end of my time there when I was active duty. And that was, that was cool. Cause I was stationed in South Carolina when I was doing that. And um, opposite end of the spectrum and it was Miami and we were in dress blues. So we looked really sharp, but everyone was sweating. It was so hot. Yeah.

Brenton: Sounds like a lot of fun to get to go to those events.

Ben: Oh yeah.

Brenton: Yeah. Were you in the pit or did you go out for like a halftime show, like marching band?

Ben: Um, typically it’s like, I remember we would like to play the anthem and then we would do, I, I can’t remember, but I think I know we did the anthem. I think both of those games. And then the rest of the time I can’t remember what we played, but I do remember playing the anthem and just looking around the stadium and seeing, you know, tens of thousands of people staring at me. I’m like, wow, this is a, I’m not even nervous right now. I was a little bit nervous, but like not the type of nervous that’s gonna like break you. So yeah.

Brenton: Well, I remember when I was in middle school and high school, seeing some of the military recruiters come around too. And I remember hearing, I probably could have made it in, but getting in the military bands is incredibly competitive. Like it’s an achievement to make it into one. It’s not a small thing.

Ben: Well, you know, you have a point there. My unit right now, we, the 25th army band in Boise, which I’m a current member of, I mean, it’s, it is the best I’ve heard, you know, as far as our mission capability and the level of performance, the musicians that are in there right now, they are very, very good. We need more people and you know, this isn’t me try to recruit or anything, but a lot of people, you know, if they want to be a great musician, you’ve got to put the, you got to put the work in, you know, you’ve got to practice a lot. You got to get really, really good at your sight reading skills and your ability to, to read music and learn music quickly.

You got to be strong as a soloist. You know, I did, I did state solo when I was a kid growing up and I did, I did pretty well at the state level, you know, it’s Idaho, which I’m speaking to a lot of my colleagues. A lot of them, I have, there’s a lot of great teachers in Idaho, but I look at some other states and once I joined active duty, I realized that a lot of people in my unit were significantly better than me. A lot of the people that come out like the Texas programs, they, they really know what they’re doing over there. Cause everyone in my unit that was from that state was like, like a way, way better than I was. A lot of them come out of, out of high school playing at a pro level. Um, yeah. So the big thing is like passing the audition is not that, not that easy. You’ve got to be pretty good to pass the audition. And second, you’ve got to be able to pass all of the physical and legal requirements to join. So like, even if my unit, if we talk, if we go on tour and we talk to a bunch of, you know, let’s say we talk to a hundred people that are interested in joining our unit. Um, we might get one person out of that group. So it’s, uh, it’s very difficult for us to, you know, keep our ranks and to keep the, uh, to keep a good flow of people joining the unit. But we’re doing pretty good right now. We’re almost to 30 people. Nice. Yeah.

Brenton: I had thought about it and I decided not to, but I, I remember two things. You might find this a little funny. So I was incredibly naturally talented with music. I could pick up when I was a kid, almost any instrument within two weeks, play it. So I played trumpet and then I picked up French horn and played several different ones, really enjoyed it. But in a lot of ways being talented was a curse. I didn’t practice. I never had to show up and sight read any piece and maintain first chair. And then like your wife, Heidi, Heidi really struggled initially. She had a hard time with some of the timing, but she put in the practice that I did. And now I don’t play much anymore. And she went on to get her masters on the flu and taught at NNU. It’s like people underestimate the importance of practice. People who put in that effort and practice consistently will outperform the people with natural talent if they don’t practice.

Ben: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s like the difference between like when they talk about the people that become Olympians, you have the people that have no talent and no hard work. That’s domain one. You have the people with talent and no hard work. That’s domain two. You have the people with no talent and all the hard work. That’s domain three. But the people that can really go the distance and really push humanity to the heights of what we’re capable of, that’s domain four. That’s literally the people with the hard work that have the talent that say, “This is something special I can do.” And they work really hard at it. And she’s one of those people, I think.

Brenton: So if you had to give advice to someone who wanted to get involved in music but maybe doesn’t understand the importance of practicing, how would you explain that to them? How would you convince them to put in that time and effort? Because I mean, you do this in a different space.

Ben: Yeah. Put the electronic devices away. First, I think that’s just good life advice that I should probably pay more attention to myself. No one remembers what it’s like to learn how to walk. But when you learn how to walk, you’re so terrible at it. And your parents are always encouraging you to learn how to get better and to keep trying. And eventually, I mean, way back before any of our memories, remember this, you figured it out. And you got good at it. And then you kept going. And then it got better and better. And now, just imagine if you had been a baby and you had said, “This is too much work. I’m just going to roll around on the floor all day.” And you don’t see that work that it took. But now that you have the ability there, you’re like, “What if I just couldn’t walk at all?” It’s like, that would be awful. So when I’m talking to a kid about it and I tell them, “Hey, you got to do that daily grind.” The journey is not always easy, but the outcome is great. So when I talk to a kid, that’s what I tell them.

Brenton: It’s a lot of discipline. And I think, like you said with electronics, we’ve trained ourselves to have short attention spans and not focus and not really put in the work. But I can’t underscore enough the importance of just consistency. Find whatever time you have. If it’s half an hour a day, start there. Start somewhere and just do it consistently. And then if you can increase it, but I think a lot of people, it’s like, “Well, I don’t want to do it.” Well, there’s lots of things in life we don’t want to do. I don’t know anybody who wants to change a diaper on their baby, but we do it because it has to be done. But we don’t apply that to some of these extracurriculars like band. And that’s something I deeply regret. I wish I had practiced more. I miss having the ability to play music as much as I could have. So how do you encourage the parents of the kids? Because I would imagine you kind of have to inspire some of the families and parents and work with them, not just the kids themselves.

Ben: We just had our band-parent meeting. And I remember I was talking to this large group of parents of the incoming beginners that I’m going to have. And I tell them, “Listen, your kid’s going to come home. They’re really excited about learning at this instrument right now. And actually, the kids haven’t even touched an instrument yet in my class. That’ll happen maybe at the end of not this week, but the week after that.” I start off by just reviewing the basics of how to read rhythm and how to read notes. But I tell the parents, I’m like, “Your kid’s going to be really excited when they finally get to hold that instrument.” And then the day is going to come when I say, “You know, you’re doing well enough in class now. Now you can take it home and play it.” And they’re going to be so excited. And you need to encourage that. But then that day is going to come sooner than later when their kid is going to say, “Hey, this is hard. This is a lot of work. I don’t want to keep doing this.” And your job as the parent is to say, “No, you’re going to keep working on this because you don’t realize how much good stuff this has in store for you, and it’s going to be hard for a while. You’ve got to learn this thing.” But then once you have the ability there, you’re going to love it. It’ll be great.

So also, the kids are... Our society, we’re getting pulled in so many different directions anymore that... I mean, in the digital age, everything is a grab for your attention, and time is your most precious resource. So trying to get my students to understand that, “Hey, I have to focus on this and get away from my device.” I mean, that seems to be such a difficult thing for us to keep in mind anymore.

Brenton: Yeah. I don’t think many people go without their devices long enough. Unfortunately, part of running the podcast now, I’m tying myself more to the devices.

Ben: Yeah.

Brenton: But I’m finding I have to set some of those boundaries where it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to focus on editing, but then it’s almost like I’m burnt out. I’ve spent too much time on it. I need to get away and do something else.” And that’s where I’ve missed some of the music. I find myself wanting, “How do I put a soundtrack to this? I wish I could play this out and write something myself or just do any of that.” So with the bands, do you guys just do concerts at the school? Do you have a marching band? Do you move around a little bit?

Ben: Well, my high school band only has about a dozen kids in it right now. It’s very, very tiny. Getting enough kids into the pipeline to get the numbers that they’re beefed up a little bit, that’s going to take some time. We’re going to do a couple of basketball games this year. We’re going to do a pet band at a couple of football games. It won’t be a ton of music, but it’ll be better than there not being anything there at all. I know a lot of community members miss having a band perform at their games. A lot of concerts at our campuses this year will do quarterly concerts with all of the groups so I can put them through a lot of fresh new music. Kids need to have access to a pretty wide variety of repertoire that’s going to keep them engaged and keep them from sitting in one piece for too long getting too bored with it.

Brenton: How do you attract new kids into the program? It seems I’ve seen a lot of music programs fade out and a lot of schools have dropped them.

Ben: Well, yeah, part of that, you know, people are attracted to success. So building a good reputation is a really big part of it. I have to say I’ve seen some directors that are way better than I am. I’ve also seen some that, you know, those are good learning lessons. Getting people in, when I know it’s time for a new group of kids that are in fifth grade now to be thinking about sixth grade, I try to call every single family in my school district who’s got a kid in fifth grade. I’m like, “Hey, I’d love to get your kid in the program.” Or I send them a message. It would be a big distinct honor for me to teach your child how to be a good musician, consider signing them up for band as an elective or signing them up for choir. We have a great, very good choral program at my school district. The gentleman that’s there currently, he’s done, he’s been working on that for a lot of years now. He’s a very skilled music educator, but that’s what I do. And then a bigger part of that too is retaining those people and keeping them in the program. Because if they get a good education and they feel really good about what they’re doing and they’re playing well and they’re having a good time, that may... And they’re friends. This is the big thing. Friends are like, “Hey, let’s do this again next year.” Kids tend to quit in groups I’ve seen, so I really try to make it a good positive experience for them and their friends so that it’s something that they’ll want to do the following year and the years to come.

Brenton: Yeah. I wish more kids would get involved in music. There’s so many benefits. There’s a lot of research and studies that have shown a lot of people think to do math, you have to be extremely analytical and not creative, but that’s not actually the case. People who are very musical or artistic, but a huge correlation has been made to people who are good at music tend to be good at math. It engages your whole brain. Music can affect your mood. It can pull you out of dark places. It can get you excited. That’s why music’s in everything. That’s why you can’t watch a movie or a TV show, anything without music. But I think it doesn’t get enough attention. I think people have taken it for granted. And I think more people need to actually get involved and understand it. But for the kids, community’s hugely important. So you’re building, fostering a positive environment, getting them excited for it, getting the kids involved. And like you said, they’re quitting in groups. So how do you keep them engaged as a friend group or building that camaraderie, I guess?

Ben: That’s a question for the next podcast interview. Yeah, that’s a good question right there. But typically, a lot of kids, a lot of people, if there’s a lot of family involvement there as well, that can be a huge factor as well too.

Brenton: Yeah. So you’re also a composer. So I’m going to go back to you went to college and got the degree in, if I remember right, music composition. Yeah. So you had your bachelor’s and then your master’s you went on for music education.

Ben: Yep. So when I was a kid, I remember I was in seventh grade and I’d walk into the band room in the morning to drop off my trombone before I went to my other classes. And I would see my band director there writing music on his computer. He would write, a lot of us would do solos and small ensembles at the solo festival that we would go to every spring. And I was like, “Hey, that’s really cool what you’re doing in there. What’s that program you’re using?” And he was like, “Well, this is called Music Time Deluxe.” I was like, “Music Time Deluxe.” Okay. So I went home and I told my parents, “Mom, dad, I want this computer software called Music Time Deluxe for my birthday.”

And so they got it for me. I think they got it at Hastings back when Hastings was like an in-person store. And they bought this and I took it home and we installed the software on my computer, our home computer, which was, I think it had Windows 90. Yeah. It was like Windows 98 on it, something like that, with two gigabytes of hard drive space. And I’m still seeing how far technology has come in the hundred years before that and end up to today. But I started writing some stuff on it and none of it was great. I still have the first piece of music I ever wrote on it. It’s printed off and it’s in a safe spot at my house. But that was so empowering for me because I could just all of a sudden, all the music I was playing in band class, which I was in love with, I could create my own stuff.

And so I tinkered around with that a lot over the next couple of years and I would go to chamber music camp in the summers. And I got into high school, got new software that was called Sibelius. So it was even easier for me to use and I started writing bigger works and longer works when I was in high school. I even had a piece premiered when I graduated high school and my high school band played it. And that was really great. And then I went to active duty and did a lot of arranging when I was there. And then after I was my active duty years, I got my undergraduate degree in composition from Northwest Nazarene University.

And since then, I’ve written a lot over the years, but I’ve also had the last five, six, seven years I’ve had the privilege of having some really good teachers. I worked with Eric Alexander at Boise State and he was a very phenomenal teacher. And he studied with Lucas Foss, which you probably don’t know that name, but Lucas Foss was really good friends with Leonard Bernstein who wrote West Side Story and was the director of the New York Philharmonic and conducted orchestras everywhere. And then I studied with Adam Schoenberg who graduated from Juilliard. And then most recently I’ve been studying with Sergeant First Class Sarah Corey and she’s the chief composer and arranger with Pershing’s own. And those teachers have really done a lot to help me with mastering the craft and getting all of my music engraved and polished and looking and sounding really good. So that’s been my composition journey there so far.

Brenton: Nice.

Ben: Yeah.

Brenton: What does it look like to compose? Like, do you hear something and then you just put it on paper or is it a lot of back and forth? You start writing something and then how do I make this work to get to the next part? Like what does it look like to write something?

Ben: All of the above there. So there’s always, it’s always good to have a number of tools to fall back on. Like when I write something, sometimes I’ll get a musical idea. I’ll be out for like a run somewhere and I’ll get a great musical idea stuck in my head and then I’ll pull my voice recorder out and I’ll hum it or I’ll sing it into my microphone and then I’ll take that back and like transcribe it onto some sheet music so I have an actual physical idea I can look at there. Sometimes it just comes from me sitting at a piano and messing with some chord progression. And trying to spice things up a little bit and if I find a cool progression, you know, I’ll try to write that out as well.

The thing I really like to do most often though is I’ll take an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper and I will, I will not write the piece of music on it. There’ll be a blank sheet of paper but like up in the top left hand corner, I’ll write down the title of the song and down at the bottom I’ll do like, like if the piece is going to be five minutes long, I’ll do like little ticks, you know, two inches apart on the paper to mark where each, you know, each minute of the music is going to be out and I’ll write in like the architecture of the piece. I’ll write in all of the dynamics and some of the musical ideas that are floating around in my head that aren’t necessarily music like I wrote this piece of music called Crimson Skies of August which you can see on my website.

But it’s basically, it’s a piece of music about forest fires and I’ll draw some colors in there and some other things that, ideas that I want represented in the work and I’ll use that to guide my process and I’ll write the form of the piece in so like a section and a B section and you know like sonata form or rondo form or rounded binary and or sometimes I’ll just sit down on my, at my computer and I’ll just, you know, I’ll just mess around I’ll just tinker with stuff and write just because I don’t want to have to, you know, it’s nice to have a process but sometimes I just, it’s nice to ignore the process and just write what you’re feeling. And sometimes I can get really good ideas there that way but then that way if like I find that having a lot of different avenues for coming up with a piece of music, I don’t necessarily get writer’s block anymore. And then I’ve got this process for how I can come up with something and if that’s not working I’ve got, you know, multiple doors in the house that I can open to go take my music someplace figuratively.

Brenton: What I’ve heard described a lot is you look at a lot of classical music and it’s always like they’re telling a story or describing a song. So that makes me a little curious. Do you ever like challenge yourself? Like here’s a, like you, since you said forest fire, do you ever pick a topic, I’m going to write a piece of music to describe a forest or I’m going to write a piece to describe a tranquil morning or this piece is going to be, I don’t know, a fight with your kids or do you just pick a topic and challenge yourself to write that or is it more something kind of comes to mind to see that really hits you hard and so there’s emotions layering into the writing?

Ben: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. And I think being able to pick from a number of different genres and different types of music can really lend itself well to like creating a soundtrack. I’ve got a friend of mine, I’m going to write music for this, this coming year and he asked me to write some music for a silent film and so I’ll be telling a story there with that, that silent film I’m going to be writing the music for. Yeah, because music really, it’s a great way to use sound and sound textures and audio to be a representation of a bigger story and that’s why, you know, movie soundtracks I think are so popular because they can really add that third dimension to a picture that you don’t get if you don’t have something playing there.

Brenton: Yep, kind of what comes to mind is you hear, I guess there’s been a couple times I’ve seen small movements of people creating, we’re going to make this all, this is going to be music just nature sounds, we’re going to start with some crickets and maybe you layer in a car driving by or whatever but they go for ambient sounds, just the sounds around them and try and turn it into music and so I picture like the movies, you don’t have that sense of feel of the scene and stuff around you but you layer in some of that music and that almost to me fills in something that’s natural that you’re just not perceiving by not being in the actual space.

Ben: Yeah.

Brenton: I am curious when you’re writing if like, let’s say you have something that plays in your mind, a jingle or line or whatever that really hits you and so you go to hum that out, how do you flush that into a full piece? Because you’re not just writing a single trombone part, you’re writing for a little symphony or something, right? Or a band or whatever group or a string quartet, whatever you’re choosing to record.

Ben: Well they say, you know, in my opinion, any piece of music that you listen to, like it’s gonna, after a while it starts to turn into noise, you know, I’ll be listening to a great piece of music on the radio but then I’ll realize it’s driving me crazy and I’ll shut the radio off and the silence will sound better. I’m like, that’s such a crazy thing for me to think about because you know, this is something that means so much to me but sometimes I just like having some peace and quiet. And to come up, like you mentioned, like coming up with a jingle or a short little bit of piece of music, you know, contrast is so important. So if I have a section that’s really, you know, in your face brass, next section of music, really big contrast like having this really pretty lyrical woodwind moment or string moment can really, it keeps the listeners, you’re engaged and you know, it keeps your audience happy to listen to the stuff that you’re writing. So being able to develop ideas or you have this cool little motif, this cool idea, being able to flip it upside down, turn it backwards, double the length on it, you know, cut it in half, you know, and being able to come up with a great contrasting idea that really it’s like looking in the mirror. That can be, you know, the people that can do that well, those are the people that I think can develop a really concise, economical piece of music that a lot of less mature composers are going to have a hard time figuring out how to take a short little thing and make it last longer without throwing in too much new material that’s going to keep your listener engaged.

Brenton: So what’s going through my mind is a little bit almost like a person is writing a character in a book, you have to keep the essence of this character, but they’re going on. And so they have to evolve and yes, and change and flow, but you have to keep the essence of that character. So I think a lot of people aren’t familiar with are less and less familiar with classical music anymore. And everybody’s used to this three to five minute songs. Just short.

Ben: Oh man, don’t get on. Get me started there.

Brenton: I kind of want to get you started. I want to expose people to it. I want to show people the how powerful classical is, why it’s, you know, symphony is not a short little piece. People might be familiar with short movements of symphonies, but people are losing that appreciation and I want, I want to re-engage people.

Ben: Support your local Philharmonic. Take your kids to those concerts. I mean, that’s, it’s, they can, it can cost a bit of money and that’s very understandable. No I, I don’t know the last time I ever heard someone say, I really did not enjoy going to that symphony concert. You know, people really, I think a lot of people really do enjoy that, but it’s just not trending anymore like it was a few decades back. And you know, it’s, it’s hard to see a lot of, a lot of orchestras anymore. They’re going bankrupt and most orchestras I know of at this point, a lot of them are literally supported by not ticket sales, but by donations from wealthy donors. And that’s, and that’s difficult for me to see because it’s such as this really incredible artwork.

And it’s just, it’s like a bit of mindfulness. You could sit there, you can just have the, have this incredible piece of art in front of you and you don’t have to think about anything. And it’s, it’s healing for, for so many people, you know, they, you know, a famous saying I’ve heard is that you go to the doctor to have your body fixed, but you go to the symphony to fix your soul, have your, your soul healed. So there’s, there’s a lot to that. That’s that’s special and precious that, um, I worry that it disappears. Someday. I don’t think it’s going to be in our lifetimes, but that’s something I do. I do worry about.

Brenton: I think that’s something a lot of the classic composers. I mean, you think Beethoven Mozart, Bach, Haydn, a lot of these were really trying to express the beauty at a extremely heightened level of what’s going on around them. Like there’s a lot of people that just view music now. It’s just, you know, what’s gonna be trendy, what’s going to sell a bunch of records. And I think we’re failing to capture the mood of something in the way that a lot of these classic symphonies did. Um, I wish people would go back and.

Ben: I think that would be cool. I think, um, yeah, the ease of access for getting all your music online has taken something from us. The fact that we can get everything at our fingertips all the time. That’s the instant gratification of that. It’s just, it’s, it’s made those other experiences harder to get. Yes.

Brenton: I, I’m kind of thinking more and more of music, kind of like I said, reading a book, writing a book, seeing the story, following it through. You can’t effectively read your book and be doing other things. Typically when people read, they focus on reading and that’s it. But when we listen to music, we treat it as something background to everything else. And I think people would have a lot more appreciation for music if they treated it like a book. I’m going to go, I’m going to intentionally just listen. I’m going to live in the music for a minute, much the same. I live in a book when I read it. Um, and I think that’s a huge part people are missing. That’s why you can go absorb these longer symphonies versus the music we have now, you know, whether it’s a rock song or whatever it is, it’s such a short piece. It’s because it’s got to keep updating to keep our attention versus if you’re intentional, I’m going to go sit and just listen and absorb and be in the moment and let it kind of flow through me. Feel it out. Um, I am curious. I want to pivot a little bit. You’re also an ultra marathon runner. So what inspired you to run ultra marathons? And the reason I’m thinking of this is I would imagine a lot of your compositions have been inspired as you’re out running marathons, seeing the beauty of nature.

Ben: I think one of the best things about being in the sport is that I can be out there and it’s just me and the natural environment around me. And there’s, there’s no time and a day can pass like the way a week usually does. And I love that in its healing. So I got into ultra marathons. First I was not a, I was not an athlete when I was a kid at all. Um, my dad had done, had done Roby Creek. I know a couple of times, but, um, grown up largely there. I did not do any sports. I only cared about trombone. Um, I only got in shape literally when I had a drill instructor yelling at me when I was in bootcamp and that was such a miserable experience. Oh my goodness. But I can remember there was this rope that you had to climb in bootcamp and you’re supposed to get all the way to the top of the rope and I could not get to the top of the rope. And I remember trying so hard and failing so much. And, um, it took me about two and a half years before I was actually able to climb the rope, get to the top. I remember getting up to the top of that and coming back down and like, I was just, I was overcome with emotion. I couldn’t believe I had done that. I realized I was getting stronger.

And a couple of guys in my unit were going to, they were training to do the Marine Corps marathon. I was like, man, I should go do that with them too. That would be cool to train for. And so, and I figured, you know, I can get, I got pretty good at learning to practice for an hour every day, you know, grown up in middle school and high school and into professional life. And I was like, you know, I can take that and apply that to be becoming good athletes. So I started going out and I, um, I was running and, um, I got shin splints. I remember, cause I started running an hour every day and I realized, I didn’t realize like, I wasn’t quite ready to do that every day, but, um, and we, my, my friend who was, who’s training and his, his buddy, while he, we were, um, we had taken a trip to Pennsylvania. We were playing at this parade up in Pennsylvania. And while we were up there and we were doing some sight sightseeing as a unit as well. So we were, went to the grand canyon of Pennsylvania and him and, uh, some other members of my unit were up at this Canyon, taking pictures and he slipped from the top of a waterfall and, and he felt it as death.

And that was, um, uh, shocking. And, uh, it was very, very difficult for everyone in my unit because he was a really likable guy. Uh, Greg Luss was his name and I remember, um, I’m not going to go into all the details there, but I do remember after that happened. Um, my conductor and the band, uh, she got me this book about, uh, this, this gentleman named Dean Kranaz’s, um, who’s an ultra runner and he’s, he’s done a lot of races over the years now, but he’d written this book about doing, um, his first hundred. I read about that. I was, I was shocked. I had, I did not think anyone could do something like that. And I’m doing the bad water ultra marathon and if that, and death Valley and doing his first 200 mile run, and I was, you know, reading this, this book and I was blown away by it by it. And the name of that, that book is called confessions of an all night runner by, and the gentleman’s name is Dean Kranaz’s and it’s his last name is spelled K a R N a Z E S that’s, that’s how you spell his last name. And, um, I, I have to read that book. I was inspired. I was like, I want to go do that stuff. And I went and ran an ultra marathon for my buddy. And that was in 2007 when I did that. And since then I’ve, I’ve got the sport that I’ve really fallen in love with. I’ve been doing, um, I’ve done probably. Uh, 72 80 ultra marathons, most of them official, some of them unofficial ones. Um, I’ve done about 30 road marathons on top of that. Um, I’ve got a number of finishes at some, some very hard races and, you know, I just retired, retired race director now from the Stanhope ultra challenge, which is a race I hosted up in sun Valley. So that’s been a large part of my life for, um, the better part of the last 15 years now, and a lot of that is tied into the music I write because a lot of those are some of the, you know, some really precious moments out there on the trail that get tied into this, uh, a lot of it’s really nature and nature inspired music. Every measure a mile, every mile a measure. So, yeah.

Brenton: What, for those who don’t know, um, what is an ultra marathon? Cause I mean, everybody’s heard of like, go run a 5k or, um, different things like that, the short marathon, but I don’t think many people, just like you had said, like, how can anybody run that far? They’re just people haven’t heard a lot about it.

Ben: Well, a lot of that’s a, that’s a great question. So first, um, when we talk about the marathon, the marathon, when someone says I did a marathon and you say, well, how far is that? And for most people so that you’re well educated, a marathon is 26 miles and two tenths of a mile, so 26.2 miles. Um, so it’s a 26 miler plus most of the way around a track. And that’s how far marathon is it’s a set distance. So an ultra marathon literally could mean, excuse me, 27 miles or 28 miles. Um, most of the distances when we talk about the ultra start, it starts at the 50 K which is a 5k times 10, which is it’s a 31 mile race. Um, and typically for most people, it takes about two hours longer to finish that than a road race, mostly because, um, I want to say the majority of all ultra marathons are on dirt because running on pavement for that long, um, you, it just, it’s a harder to recover and dirt just feels a lot nicer, uh, to be honest. And, um, the next distance up from that is a 50 mile or, and the next distance up from that is typically 100 kilometers. And the next distance after that is considered, um, a hundred mile race. And you’re seeing actually in America right now, you’re seeing a huge influx of the 200 mile races that are, um, uh, some race directors that are crazy enough to put those events together are doing so. Yeah.

Brenton: Out of all the races you’ve run, what has been some of your favorites? accomplishment or scenery, like I’m sure there’s different genres for what you like.

Ben: I, you know, the one that is the closest to my heart definitely is the, the bad water ultra marathon, cause it’s, it’s the desert and the desert, it has a different type of beauty. I mean, I look at the music of a composer that means a lot to me is John Luther Adams. That’s not to be, there’s two John Adams that are great composers, but John Luther Adams, um, has this piece of music called become desert that, um, really it captures the landscape of the desert when it’s hot outside really well. And I, I find the desert in, in death Valley to be so otherworldly. It’s just, it’s, there’s nothing like it. And I love that. Plus it’s crazy and it’s hot and it’s, you know, it’s 135 miles and it’s, it’s the summer. And so you’re, you’re sweating like no one’s business. Um, other ones that really mean a lot to me, um, Stan hope that I just got done putting together that I just, I just handed it off to my assistant race director, that means a lot to me. And that’s my trail race up in sun Valley, Idaho. And it’s a very, very pretty country up there, extremely scenic. And you’re up in the rocks and these Alpine lakes and there’s so many wild flowers. Um, another, another race that really means a lot to me is, uh, the Cascade Crest 100 over in Eastern Washington. And that’s been going on for so many years now, but that was my first one that I ever did. And I also got engaged to my wife who also happens to be her sister at the finish line a couple of years later when I did it. Now we’re not going to talk about the third time, actually, I’m going to bring it up because the third time I did the race, a complete disaster because I got a stung by hornets like a whole bunch of times during the race.

Um, and that just, that messed me up so bad. I got to mile 50 and I was like, I am done. I feel so terrible. Rain the rest of the night on the people that were still out there. So everyone that ran all night, they got dumped on like monsoon style the rest of the night, so I’m glad I, I didn’t end up being able to finish that. Um, I, I started help start at the Idaho trail ultra series back in the day with my old race. Um, yeah.

Brenton: You mentioned being like the race director. What does it look like to set up these races? Cause if you’re, if you’re having a hundred mile race or any length, like you have to have something marked out for people to follow. This is up in a lot of these. You said are up on trails.

Ben: Yep.

Brenton: How do you organize and set up a race event like this?

Ben: Right. Okay. So you asked that question and then for anyone who’s aspiring to be a race director out there, don’t die. I kid, but you know, um, it is, it’s a, it’s all very difficult job. Uh, cause so much can happen on race day that can be out of your control. It’s like, you just have to roll with the punches. Uh, what I can tell you now, to be perfectly honest, I, I always enjoyed doing it quite a bit, but to put an event together, I mean, first you have to have people there that want to help you that want to make it happen. You know, you just don’t write a sin, you know, you just don’t write a symphony because you feel like writing a symphony. You write a symphony because you’ve got the people there that say, let’s write a symphony together and you don’t put together race unless you’ve got people there to say, let’s put a race together. Um, because you’ve got to get all the permits to put the event together. Um, you’ve got to, you got to do the advert advertising. You got to get people to sign up. Otherwise there’s, there’s no money to put the event together with. Um, so much of it’s non, um, intangible, like, like if you were to buy the Boston marathon, what are you actually buying?

You it’s like, it’s, you’re literally, you’re buying a brand. Um, but yeah, you’ve got to do all this lead up to the race. You’ve got to build some, some, a really well detailed safety plan. You know, what are you going to do when this person gets lost out in the woods at this point, what are you going to do when someone is, you know, having heat exhaustion? What are you going to do when the general public get mad and they strip your course markings because they don’t think anyone should be out there.

Um, you need to have, um, contingency plan built on contingency plan and then expect for none of those to work. And then for the race to get canceled because a forest fire starts two days before the race and the whole area is now an evacuation zone. So I’ve never had that happen, but I had, I ran a race last week. And where a forest fire started 20 miles north of the race finish, um, you know, the Thursday night before Saturday start, and they had to call the race in the middle of the race because volunteers had to go evacuate their homes and the air quality was too bad. So yeah. And then you have to go mark the course and you’ve got to make sure you’ve got eight stations ready and that, um, if the aid station is for people doing a hundred mile race and the first runner’s going to be there at 2 AM that that aid station is set up and ready to go at 2 AM and that your volunteers, um, didn’t oversleep their alarms, um, which it can’t happen. And it’s like, you can’t control it. And, um, I’m getting enough help can be extremely difficult this year. I think I’ve reached out to over 1500 people that have helped with that. I’ve run my race in the past to get a help and we, we always find enough people to help with that, but it’s, it’s pretty difficult to get enough people to actually make the event, uh, a success and a green go and a good time for everyone without it being too exhausting. So, um, it’s special to be able to do that. Oh, and I did, I completely left out all of the after race to do is, which always seems like a lot of work, all of the, all of the financing, getting anything you have ready for the next year. It’s a, it’s a whole year process.

Brenton: So I know you’ve done running outside of ultra marathons too. Like you were running with the guard, weren’t you?

Ben: I did. Yeah, I ran. Um, I was a member of the all guard team with the, uh, with the national guard. And that’s a national team that travels around the country and they. Promote physical fitness and they’ve got two teams now. So there’s the marathon team, which does a few events a year. I did a few events. All, um, I did a lot of races around the United States there for about a decade. And then they have the endurance team, which is actually the people that go out and do a, they compete at the Spartan races and that’s, that’s a cool team. And they’re both similar, like if they’re staffed by the same coordinator, but a different sports there, um, I would not do a Spartan event again though. Well, I, you know, I, I’m not used to doing all of those obstacles. So I did, I did a Spartan and I was doing so much twisting and turning with all of the different obstacles during the race that it released the shingles virus from my spine and I got shingles. Yeah. And that’s, um, yeah, that’s not, not, not a fun experience. Then I got it again, two years later and I was like, is this ever going to go away?

Yeah. So, but yeah, that’s, um, I’ve done a lot of races there. I’ve done the baton death March in New Mexico. I’ve, I’ve done the Kawhi marathon and over in Hawaii, I’ve done, uh, so, so many races all over the country there. Then that’s been, it’s been, uh, pretty awesome. Pretty fantastic experiences with good teammates. And I was one of the slow, I was one of the slowest people on the team. You know, I can run a marathon at about typically anywhere from a 745 mile to like a 715 mile or seven minute mile. If I’m having a really good year. Um, and all of my teammates could do like five something paced, um, and just beat me by like an hour. Isn’t that crazy?

Brenton: That’s a long time. Uh, is it because of the style of training, like you were training even longer distance, like the ultra is where they were focused more on the marathon.

Ben: Well, like I mentioned earlier, when I was a kid, I had no, I had no interest in sports whatsoever. Um, and so I didn’t do any running when I was a kid. I only got really got into it when I started doing the long stuff. But when you’re a kid, you know, a lot of kids in my band program at my school, um, they do cross country and we’ve got a great team up in Baker city where I’m at. And so you’ll have these kids that are doing cross country season, middle school and high school, and then a lot of them will go on and do it in college. Well, they’re building not endurance. I mean, they’re building good strength, but they’re building like serious speed because they’re doing all of these short, uh, 3k and 5k races that are, you know, they’re all fast races. So by the time they’re getting to the age I was when I was leaving active duty, um, they’re already way faster than I was. So my athletic journey started quite a bit later than a lot of people do. Um, so even when I was working on my undergrad at NNU, I wanted to join the cross country team. So I guess fate sealed it because it was at the same time as concert band, which I was getting scholarships for. And also I could, my fastest five mile time was like 30 minutes or 31 minutes. And a lot of those people, a lot of the kids on that team were doing like 25 to 27 minutes, so I couldn’t even keep up with them.

Brenton: Yeah. I, I am definitely not a runner. I, a lot of people have different, um, Muscle reactions. I don’t know the correct terminology there, but some people can sprint really well. Some people can go distance. And I always found I had good burst strength, but I didn’t have a lot of endurance. Um, although ironically, then I joined swim team and would swim like eight miles, three times.

Ben: Okay.

Brenton: So I, I had, I had good endurance in the pool, but I was never a runner. Unless I got really ticked off. I remember there was one time I got really upset and I just took off out of the house. I’m going for a run and I ran eight miles straight and I hadn’t run doing anything for years. I was before after that one. Yeah, you were, you know, it was relaxing. It’s like, I needed it. It helped so much.

Ben: When I first, the first time ever went out for a run, it was right before bootcamp cause I figured I should try to get in shape and I only did like a mile and a half. But I got a blister, like a big old blister on the side of my foot and I felt terrible. And I only ran from my house to like Meridian high school and back. And that wasn’t very far. Um, Building the endurance. It took, it took a lot. It took a while. It took a long while to build some good endurance, but then like last weekend I ended up running 62 miles and felt great the whole time. You know, I had my, my nutrition was dialed in my hydration. My electrolyte balance was, was really good. I just had my pace really dialed in and just had a really great day on the trail out there. And then after I was done and took my shoes off and I didn’t have any blisters at all on my feed, so, you know, for taking 125,000 steps in a day, it’s like my, my fever. Yeah. They still, they look really good.

Brenton: I, in some ways I wish I ran more in some ways. It’s like, where do I find the time? Um, but the few times I have run, it has been calming and relaxing. Once I get over the stitch and what I, what I found is you can push yourself way past what you think you’re capable of. And so I almost take a weird pleasure in that where it’s like, okay, I’m feeling the pain, I’m going to lean in. I’m feeling the stitch. I’m going to lean in and I’m going to keep running even more. Like it’s almost, it’s weird. Like you embrace it and then it goes away.

Ben: No, I’m not, I’m not guilty of that at all. Um, yeah, there’s, there’s magic and misery I find and you’ll, I’ll be out there doing it and it’ll be like, man, I feel terrible and this is hard to do, but you know, what a, you know, it’s a real privilege to be tired from something that you once thought it was not possible. I remember when I first picked up that book, when I first started, uh, the sport and reading about all of this crazy stuff, I was like, this is, I do not believe any of the stuff that I’m reading about. And here I am, you know, going on, you know, 18 years later and having a lifetime doing this really amazing sport that I’m so grateful for that, you know, I’m like, what if that had never happened? What would I be doing instead? Um, so honestly, I, I don’t want to stop at this point. It means too much to me.

Brenton: Yeah. You get to go experience nature in a way that most people never do. You’re running out in cases that most people never get to see travel. Look at like it’s, you can actually see the stars. You can see everything around instead of smog or city lights or anything. Like you get to go experience the beauty of nature and it’s peaceful and relaxing. I think I had the smallest glimpse of that. One of my dad’s best friends. I was homeschooled, but the state we were in, you had to have some extra curriculars and so one of the things we did is okay, where he could teach me wilderness survival training. So we would go camping deep, I mean, 50 miles away from the nearest cell phone signal, way deep up into the Washington national forest. And rough it a bit. Like you were, we drove up in, you weren’t packed having a, I think I was 12 at the time or something, you weren’t having a 12 year old pack everything in miles and miles and miles. Um, but we drove in, but it was, everything was minimal. And once you got up there, you left all the electronics off. You just, it was so peaceful, relaxing. I remember one of the pools, it had to be at least 30 feet deep, but looking at it, you would have thought it was too much. It was the most crystal clear water I’ve ever seen in my life.

Ben: Cool.

Brenton: And just, that was amazing. Like I can’t go to a campground with grass and other people around anymore. I’ve been spoiled by some of that camping. That’s just so peaceful and relaxing.

Ben: Cool.

Brenton: But so going back to some of the music composition and tying that to some of your marathons, have you written any pieces specifically for like a race you’ve done, like, did you run bad water and write a piece for you? Or stand?

Ben: I did do the, the stand ho peak one. So I, if I was to think back on any of my race experiences, um, not honestly, not necessarily, um, cause those are great moments, but they’re also just like a glimpse in time at everything that I’m doing. So like a stand ho peak, it’s a peak on my race course. I tried to actually, I tried to get runners to run up to the top of it, but then I went and did it myself. I’m like, someone is going to die if they try to come up here. And if they do it during the race, then I am, you know, someone’s going to sue me. So, um, I wrote a piece of music about this really magnificent piece. Uh, magnificent peak on my race course. And I entered it into a competition because my, my first sergeant, my unit was like, Hey, you should enter this competition. And I did, and I didn’t ended up winning. So that was like, that was a big shock for me. I was really happy. And it’s a great piece of music. You can check it out on, on my website or on JWPepr.com. Are there notable moments when you’re like, Oh, I’m going to do this. Are there notable pieces?

Like the one I just mentioned, uh, Crimson skies of August, something that really stuck out to me a few years back was the Beaver Creek fire when I was uh, working in Ketchum as a, uh, customer customers. Um, I was, I was the front desk of the forest service there the summer after I graduated college. Um, but I remember there was this fire there and just kind of what it did to the landscape, I’d never been that close to a forest fire up close. And that was terrifying. So I wrote this piece of music, um, kind of loosely based on it, but a lot of my stuff, it’s got Idaho ties. I’ve got this piece of music that I wrote last winter. It’s called Lemhi Twilight Serenade. Um, the Lemhi Valley, which if you’ve never been there, don’t tell anyone about it, cause it’s really beautiful area. Uh, it’s right behind Mount Bora in Idaho. So it’s way back there on a full, on a new moon, the starlight will actually illuminate the ground because there’ll be so many stars out and that is just, uh, it’s so cool to be standing in that in the middle of the night, just look up and see the Milky Way, just really prominent right there. And I’m trying to think cause there’s a, and there’s a lot of music there. That I’ve, I’ve done over the years. Um, a lot of it’s not coming to my, coming to my head now, but like a lot of it’s on, on my website, there’s a lot of really nature inspired Idaho inspired music on there that I’ve just, you know, surrounded by this place that I love that I’ve, I’ve been calling home now for most of my life.

Brenton: Yeah. What, what is like the career path for a composer? Um, like you’re writing these pieces, but how does that,

Ben: uh, the career path for a composer is to apply for welfare. Um, yeah, that’s a really good question. A lot, I have a lot of friends that compose and write stuff and there are, they’re band directors too, to make a living off of composing. I mean, that’s not, that’s not very easy to do. Um, a lot of people will go on to get a PhD or a DMA and they’ll teach at the university level, which that would be cool. But also it’s like, do I really want to put in the work to get another degree? Do I want to pay the money to get another degree? Cause that’s, that’s expensive. Um, I really, really enjoy working with the kids. Um, I love writing too. So, you know, I, there’s a, there’s a handful of people out there that are just writing commissions only then. When we say commission only first, I would love it if you wanted to write, if you wanted me to write you a piece of music, of course, but, um, you know, people that write on commission only, it’s like, they’ve got a lot of people that want them to write music for them. And so they kind of just stack those month by month, year by year, so that they’ve got a steady stream of income. So that they, they’re not necessarily worried about, Oh, where’s my next bit of income going to come so I can pay my bills.

Brenton: Is that someone like writing the scores for movies?

Ben: Um, yeah, well, no, yes, yes. And no, like the people that are writing movie music, that’s really hard to break into unless you know someone you put, you have to be lucky and I have a lot of friends that are good enough composers. They could write great movie music, but they just, they haven’t had that door open up. You have to be, you know, part of the reason John Williams and Stephen Spielberg worked so well together is because, um, John was older than I was when he wrote the music for, for Jaws. And that was, that was like his winning ticket right there. Stephen went to him is like, Hey, would you write this music for me? Uh, for my movie. And I correct me if I’m wrong, but Spielberg is a lot younger than John and John already had been working in Hollywood as a piano player for a number of decades, so it took him a long time. You know, they’re really good friends now. And John writes all of his music, but, um, you really do have to have that networking there, but to work on commission, that’s where someone like you would say, Hey, I want you to write a music piece of music for me about this, this, and this, and you say, and I would say to you, I would love to, um, currently you’re on a wait list. Uh, it’s already, if I have that piece of music to you in a couple of years, and then you’d probably say, yeah, you bet if, if you’re willing to wait that long. So, um, if there’s demand, you know, that, that can, that can work. But a lot of, a lot of times getting enough people interested. It does take a while there for that.

Brenton: Kind of what comes to mind is that people are more familiar with his like paintings, um, artwork, like someone might go commission. This is something I want to hit in my house. I want it to look like this. Can you paint that for me? Or I’m looking for this cover for my book or something. Like you go with an idea and then that produces it.

Ben: Yep.

Brenton: But then there’s another side of that, at least in the art world. I don’t know if it applies to music words, you write these pieces that really speak to you that fascinate you. And then maybe you display your art collection for people to enjoy or to bid on or to purchase, um, is that a similar side of music as well?

Ben: If I wrote a hit and one person performed it, and then they went to their friends and said, look at this really killer piece of music, then their friends might be tempted to buy it. And that’s what we call a domino effect. And I would love to see that happen at some point. Um, I, I, I’ve got a number of songs now that I, I’m pretty proud of that. I think could, you know, achieve that. Uh, but I’m gonna, I’ll have to give it some time. It, the classical music world, things tend to move slower than I would prefer. So, um, but yeah, it’s the same idea. Yep.

Brenton: So what kind of music do you write? Cause as a band director, I would assume you, even if you fully for your band, I would assume you at least tweaks and parts, or maybe write some extra lines. Cause you have to fit the instruments you currently have. So I would imagine there’s some level of adjusting existing, to fit the band that you have available. But then I would also think maybe you’re writing some original pieces for your band, or then you’re writing for maybe a full symphony or something that your band can accomplish, like what areas do you write in?

Ben: Well, first, if I’m going to write something for like a college band, that’s going to look substantially different than something I’m going to write for a kid who just got the training wheels off the bike. Um, I’ve, I’ve written music for every level of experience I’ve got. Some masterworks that are written for adults and professionals that are things that I would want to play and they’re, they are not simple, they’re challenging works, very musical, very, uh, emotional works. Um, but a lot of, you know, a lot of people will not get to the level that they’re able to play those. And so I’ve got music that are written for, you know, lesser college bands and for good high school bands and for lower level high school bands and then eighth graders and seventh graders and sixth graders and people that have no very, uh, very small set of skills. And I’ve even got stuff, you know, I, my kids, they sing at a kids’ choir and they did this song I wrote last year called the great Idaho noodle train. And it’s a really silly song, but you know, I wrote a song about a train that rides on tracks and made of noodles. So, um, when I write something for like sixth graders, there’s not going to be a lot of opportunities there where one person is going to be playing alone by themselves. Cause I mean, I’ve, I’ve done that to six graders or where I’m like, you get to have a solo at the concert, but you want to be really, really careful about that. Cause if that kid messes up and it’s a disaster, uh, emotionally that can, that can really be, be tough for a child who’s emotionally, they’re not, they’re not ready for that kind of disappointment.

So I’ll write a melody and then, you know, I really, I’ll try to think of the band almost in like four or five parts when there might be, uh, 12 to 15 different instruments. Um, that way the kids are playing lines in big groups. They’ve got other friends that they can lean on, um, metaphorically speaking, to help them play that if you got stronger group, stronger kids on different instruments, that does make a big difference. And then as we, as the kids get older and, and people improve their skills, excuse me, then they can do more individual stuff. You can have, instead of one clarinet part, you can have like three or four. And instead of one treble part, you’re going to have like two or three and French horns and so on and so forth. So, uh, that’s something I really try to keep in mind. Um, if I’ve got a unit that if I’ve got a group that’s really small and I’m not sure what kind of instrumentation I’m going to do all, you know, I’ll write a flex band arrangement, which is like, you don’t know who’s going to be in that classroom that year. So you have a piece of music that’s got like four different parts or five different parts and they’ve got different transpositions for part one. So you’ve got a part one that’s for like a C instrument in concert pitch or B flat or an E flat, like a saxophone. And then you’ll have that for all the parts so that you can give you them out. And you can have a few people on each part and that makes it easy for, um, band that might only have like 10 to 15 kids.

Brenton: Yeah. Um, I, one aspect of some of the pieces I’ve listened to that I’ve enjoyed is almost when the different sections start having conversations back and forth. Um, like you’ll hear, Oh yeah.

Ben: Yeah. The column response.

Brenton: And then the woodwinds or strings and then the flute or like you can go from low to high or the highest conversating or the lows. Like I really enjoy some of those back and forth conversational pieces, but how do you manage that with a smaller band? Or can you?

Ben: Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s not, you know, you can also think about it like from a, you know, sometimes if I really want to make sure my ideas are easy enough for a listener to understand or the audience, you know, doing everything on a piano first. So like you’ve got only two different voices there, but like you can really play with, can a piano do it? Yeah. And then it’s not hard to have, you know, throw that into the music, you know, a bunch of octave displacement stuff can really, um, make the music more three dimensional.

Brenton: Is there a particular style that you enjoy writing most?

Ben: Do you like this conversation? Um, like marches or. I like, I like John Williams. I like Yohann de May a lot. You know, Han is, he lives in New York. He’s from the Netherlands. He wrote this, a couple of really great trombone concertos, very singable melodies that are just pleasant to listen to and really some great harmony there as well. And, um, David Maslanka is his music is very emotionally compelling. And very deep, um, is really struck a chord pun intended, um, with me and, um, trying to think who else there is. There’s so many good ones out there. And those are just, those are like band composers on Knob Williams, but you, you catch the drift there and.

Singable melodies, interesting harmony, you know, trying to get away from chord chord progressions, you know, your standard, um, five to five chord progression, which is, um, always easy to fat to fall back on, but you know, you try to, it’s nice to write a different bike here and there. So those are, those are the types that I like. I, when I was younger, I really enjoyed the minimalist music of John Adams and John Luther Adams more recently. But, uh, if I was a Philip Glass as well. And when I’m out running, I really enjoy listening to atmospheric music. I have this podcast called ultimate Thule. That’s out of Australia that I’ve been listening to now for like a decade. And they always have some, some of the, their stuff is a little bit too far out there, a little too, too, uh, too, too, um, too. Well, it’s not for me. Um, but I’ve, you know, you try it, you’re like, okay, I’m going to, I’m going to turn this podcast off and try something different, but a lot of their atmospheric stuff when I’m out just running and trying to zone out, it just, uh, sits with me well.

Brenton: Yeah. I, I remember I wasn’t allowed to listen to much music growing up unless it was classical because, um, we talked about this in episode one, like the way mom grew up, if you could play a drum to it, or if there were drums, it was evil. So this is interesting because we were allowed to listen to classical, which you know, timpani is all the percussion. But so like my early music was all classical. I remember having a set of 25 or 30 classical CDs. Um, so my favorites, like the ones that I had were Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky.

Ben: Oh, really?

Brenton: Um, and then I enjoyed some of the piano pieces. I’m probably going to put you the name, but Chopin.

Ben: Chopin. Yeah. Spelled a chopping. That’s how I pronounce it when I was a kid. Yeah. Chopping A2 is no Chopin.

Brenton: I really liked some of Chopin’s piano pieces and another name I’m going to put your, um, is it Rachmaninoff?

Ben: No, that’s perfect. Yeah.

Brenton: Um, I enjoyed some of his stuff, but that’s kind of. That’s kind of what I really enjoyed and gravitated to. Um, but lately I’m coming back to classical quite a bit more and I, I like either the Chopin style right now on some of his stuff, um, or I’m leaning mostly into maybe Beethoven, um, is really hitting me the hardest or. It’s very selective with Rachmaninoff, but I like some of his darker pieces. Um, I like some of that tension. I like some of the darkness. If, if I had to try and describe what I’m looking for in classical, in a way, it’s kind of weird. It’s almost kind of like I’m looking for a dubstep, um, or,

Ben: oh, interesting.

Brenton: I like where you get kind of this deep tension build up and then a drop.

Ben: Okay. Okay.

Brenton: Or, and I like the haunting, um, like you think of haunting bells laid over or something.

Ben: Okay.

Brenton: I probably have a weird niche taste that I’m searching for right now, but I’ve been really trying to find some more classical to listen to in some of those areas and it seems kind of far in between.

Ben: Well, I have to tell you that like a lot of people and the electronic world that we’re in, um, there’s still a lot of influence from the heavy hitters that came our predecessors before us. Um, when you look at, um, you know, the early 20th century and the, the romantic and the classical areas that all of that music it’s, it’s here now. It just, it’s in a different vein. So that’s kind of what you’re, what you see there. And you talk about the big climax and drop them. That idea has been around forever because people realize that it sells.

Brenton: So you have that ebb and flow and movement. I, I have to be in certain moods for certain music. There’s some that’s like the very light, pretty melodies that just are so moving. But I can’t listen to those all the time. I have to be in a certain mood, um, versus other pieces. And I don’t know all the names I would have 20 years ago, but there’s other pieces that it’s like, I can listen to at any time in any mood, they, they just ring. But it, do you stick mostly to that? Do you rate, well, I guess not asking you, right. Do you have a jazz band at your school?

Ben: Not, not currently, no one signed up for the class this year. So, I mean, it was, it was in really bad shape when I, when I took the program over. I’m not trying to say anything bad about the old director, but, um, it was also the pandemic, which really, um, a lot of, a lot of groups are still trying to recover from that. And when I, I showed up, there was, um, I realized it was going to be like a ground up, like I had nothing. I didn’t even have a small fire to keep my small campfire to keep my hands warm. By it’s like, I had like nothing. I had a couple of rock band classes and, um, yeah, everything just was in really dire straits as far as, uh, what I was looking for.

Brenton: I, I was in jazz band when I was in band and concert band and marching band. Um, and I was first chair in all of them, except for jazz band. And I played multiple. I played trumpet and I played French horn cause I was homeschooled. So I just played, they filled me in everywhere. So I would play in the select band and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the other band and any band they could fit me into any time slot. We had a huge band program in Washington. Um, so I played a lot, but, um, I forgot where I was going with that. The, the jazz band was so different and hard for me. I could sight read any music. I could play, I could feel out the music, but I could not improv hardly to save.

Ben: Learning, learning to improv takes, uh, it’s like if I’m out for a trail run and I’m running on a really spicy trail, that’s got a lot of rocks and is really technical. And I’m trying to keep my footing and not roll an ankle and keep moving forward. That’s for me, that for me is what improv is like. Um, you’re trying to fit these notes and melodies into this, uh, this key signature and these chord progressions and that, and to do that, you really have to be thinking pretty, pretty fast with your head on, Oh, all right. So what’s going to fit in this? Oh, wait, we’re to the next moment. Oh, we’re in the next moment now. So that that’s, uh, not the easiest thing to do.

Brenton: I would imagine not. What, what comes to my mind is I’m wondering if there’s a correlation between people who do jazz or that more improv and people who compose because those seem like they’d be kind of skills where they are.

Ben: Yep. One, uh, one, you can be more thoughtful than the other one. So when I’m not under a time crunch, obviously, uh, when you’re doing jazz, you’re right there in the, in the moment and you don’t have a ton of time to think ahead. I mean, you have some time to think ahead, but, um, it forces you to get a little bit uncomfortable with your thinking and to really, uh, stretch your brain a good bit.

Brenton: I, I think this skill that stuck with me most that I’ve tried to apply the rest of my life from jazz band. My band director said, nobody will ever know if you made a mistake. Don’t react. Don’t give it off. It was an accidental play it off. You intended to do it. So it was like in some ways, almost forcing myself to make a mistake to recover and play through the improv. The only way I could approach the improv, but I liked that idea of, you know, nobody’s going to know if you make a mistake. Just keep going.

Ben: Right.

Brenton: Yeah. Well, going, so I want to tie back. We were talking a little bit about, um, some of the musical pieces you’ve written. How you mentioned you’ve won an award. You’re nationally recognized. What does that mean? What does that entail?

Ben: So the American prize, which my fourth symphony and my original work, grandma’s coat, I mean, I wrote both of them. The American prize is this national division. There’s a lot of composition contests out there, but they said you could submit two pieces. And part of being recognized with that award is that, um, it goes, um, everyone who submits to that, which is a lot of people, um, it goes through several different rounds of the selection and my, both those pieces made it to the final round for that, which, um, means a great deal to me. And I have a lot of friends that are excellent composers that have pieces on that list. So that’s, that’s what that means. And I, both those pieces, uh, were selected for that list this year. Yeah.

Brenton: Does that add like distribution of your music out to different areas or is that just kind of like a competition you enter and then, okay, you’re like, I guess I’m thinking in terms of marketing, like when you get to that level, do them, they do some marketing for you.

Ben: Do they distribute it? Well, that, that’s a good question. It doesn’t involve distribution, but it’s a way for you to say, Hey, this, this music, other people have recognized that it’s, it’s impactful and it’s meaningful and that people tend to gravitate towards, um, works like that. Like if it’s on that list or like J.W. Pepper has an editor’s choice list that they have, or my alma mater at the American band college, they have a top 100 list that they have a number of, where they pick their favorite top 100 pieces of concert band that they’ll listen to each year to put on that list. And I’m hopeful that they’ll go, they’ll get put on that list this year. But, um, you know, it’s a way to say this, this piece of music is above everything else. That’s, that’s been written, you know, a friend of mine was given a talk a while ago and he said, you know, a new piece of concert band literature is written every 20 seconds. Doesn’t mean that it’s all good. So I, I to really try to keep them in mind. Some of my works I would say are probably in that belong on that 20 second list, but those other works I did just mention, those were significant works for me that I have a huge amount of attention to detail on a high level of complexity written into the musical DNA of the piece that I’m quite proud of.

Brenton: What would your dream be for some of those pieces or what you would entail? Like, do you want a symphony to pick up and play this and people listen to it? Do you want bands to pick it up and use it as part of their curriculum? These are pieces that they’re going to perform, whether it’s, you know, high school or college or whatever level you choose to write it for. What is your dream for the music?

Ben: You write my dream for the music that I write is that it would cause some real meaningful social gains that it would have a big influence on someone in the work that they were doing that would be good for the environment and good for society. You know, everything else there is anecdotal. But I do believe music has a way to connect people and to really speak to the soul on that deepest level there. That if that’s what I was able to do with the stuff that I was writing, that’s what would really mean the most to me.

Brenton: That’s kind of on a deep emotional level. Like you want to better people’s lives. There was a book I read a long time ago. This is your brain on music and I want to reread it again. But it talked, if I remember it, it talks about things like music is one of the few things that engages every part of your brain. Instead of just thinking on the left hemisphere or the right hemisphere, whatever you’re doing, music engages everything. When you look at someone with Alzheimer’s, they might have forgotten everything else, but you can play a music piece when they were 14 and they can remember it. They can go back. Music has such a big impact on people. People of every different religion, background, politic, everything. One of the few things every human society and culture on earth has had in common is we all have music. There’s very few things that speak to us the way music does. I really like that your inspiration and dream is to have that effect because that feels very grounded in what music is to me.

Ben: Cool. Thank you.

Brenton: Well, if, I guess for a bad pun, I want you to toot your own horn. Where can people find you? Where can they find your music? Where can they follow you? How can they engage or support, whether it’s supporting with your current band program or whatever it may be?

Ben: Keep your horn. Okay, sure. I am, well, I’m the band director for the Baker School District in beautiful Baker City, Oregon. So if you want to check me out there or reach out to my school district and help support a band program, that would mean a lot. We’re also tied in with Carnegie Crossroads Arts Center up there in Baker, which does really amazing work in bringing arts education to the Baker City area. I do have a website. It’s benblessing.com and you can go on there and see my beautiful nug there and check out a lot of the work that I’m doing. And if you want to be able to get in touch with me, benatblessing.com, that’s my email so people can reach me there.

Brenton: Are you on social media places?

Ben: I am. Yeah, I’m on I’m on Facebook and I am on Instagram and I’m on Blue Sky and on TikTok and I’m also on Strava.

Brenton: Excuse me. Post like parts of your pieces on there, like on TikTok, just a short piece of one of your music pieces.

Ben: I’ve got some stuff that’s going to be on there this fall. So I’m looking forward to that.

Brenton: Yeah, I think it’s fun to get those little teasers out there and get people really hooked.

Ben: Yeah, I have this piece that I just wrote that’s called One Life to Make a Difference. It’s pretty great. My friend Jesse, who is Jesse Claus, he’s a member of my unit. He wrote the lyrics and wrote the lyrics too. So I’m looking forward to that coming out this fall as well.

Brenton: Nice. Well, thank you for coming on. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I definitely want to do more conversations on or off the podcast. I really enjoyed all this.

Ben: Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Brenton: Thanks for watching the Brenton Peck Podcast.