We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ben Titus. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ben below.
Ben, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I have always had music in my life in some way, shape, or form. My great grandmother bought me a Realistic keyboard from Radio Shack when I was 5 that I wore out from just noodling stuff. Some of my earliest memories involved cruising down the road with some kind of music blasting, from Pink Floyd to Metallica to Enigma and more. I first got serious about it in late elementary school, picking up clarinet and starting down the ‘legit’ road. After that first year, I coasted by on talent, never feeling terribly challenged, so I didn’t practice much. My 8th grade year, we got a new band director who threw music at us that we, frankly, shouldn’t have been able to play in a million years. However, he believed we could, and pushed us to be greater than the sum of our parts and our experiences. He also put me in charge of helping some students improve, and that’s when the teaching bug really kicked in- the joy I had in helping others get better was addictive. At that point, I knew I wanted to go into music education. The performance side didn’t come until later.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m Ben! I’m primarily a bassist that’s based just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My day job is Director of Instrumental Music (band and orchestra) at Milwaukee School of Languages, a multi-lingual immersion school in Milwaukee. I have been in education since 2007. Concurrently, I am an active bassist, teacher, and conductor in the greater Southeastern Wisconsin region. I have two main groups I play with at the moment- WAMI-Award winning variety band called Big Spoon, as well as a traditional Bavarian folk music group called Milwaukee Alpenbläser. When not working with these groups, I work as a sideman for anyone that needs one, in any style except modern country. Tying into my school experience a bit, I play in and direct pit orchestras in the metro Milwaukee area, as well as consulting for sound on occasion. I’ve been playing professionally since 2005 or so, and in education since 2007. The road to this point in my life and career has been ANYTHING but a straight line.
I got into music around 5 years old when my great grandmother bought me a Realistic keyboard from Radio Shack. I played that thing for hours at a time, by ear, and even wrote ‘songs’, which were just the same chord progression over and over again. a couple of years later, I would see my grandparents on most weekend, and my grandmother gave me piano lessons until they moved and couldn’t anymore. I was probably 7 or 8 at the time. At that point, music left my life for a while and was replaced with dirtbikes and video games. When 5th grade rolled around, I was eligible for the before school band program and wanted to join. My mother forbade the trumpet and a sax was too expensive, so clarinet was when I got. I immediately started figuring out melodies by ear, well before music reading for clarinet developed (I’d forgotten everything from piano at this point). By the time I hit the winter concert, I was good enough to play with the advanced kids, and that was the first time I thought this might be a permanent thing in life. In 8th grade, I had a wonderful band teacher that not only challenged us with great music, he also asked me to help tutor beginning students. I discovered I had a knack for it and, more importantly, realized I really liked doing it. By the end of 8th grade, I knew I was going to be a band director, and that was that.
8th Grade also got me introduced the the bass guitar for the first time. A friend brought his to school one day and for some reason, it was out during English class. I picked it up and played Iron Man on it and was hooked. It was another year before I owned one and started playing, picking up guitar around the same time. I immersed myself in both guitar and bass, playing bass for school and guitar for songwriting and in bands. Eventually I transitioned to playing mostly bass in bands, only using the guitar for writing, though both progressed at about the same rate for a while.
Senior year, the band director and bass player ambitions collided- if I wanted to be a music education major in school, I had to play a ‘traditional’ instrument. Having kind of dropped clarinet after freshman year, I was out of practice and resigned myself to two years of community college and lessons to audition into a university when I was good enough, particularly on string bass. However, Longwood University was willing to have me audition on electric bass and bass clarinet, with the understanding that I’d be playing bass clarinet in wind ensemble and my primary instrument would be string bass, with a LOT of work ahead of me to get where I needed to be. I prepared what I’m sure was an awful audition and gave it a shot. Months went by before I heard from the music department- due to budget cuts, they’d had to cut the entire strings program, but welcomed me to be a clarinet major. Since it was April of my senior year, I accepted and just rolled with it. However, I got very lucky. My clarinet professor was primarily a saxophonist, and the jazz ensembles director. He cut me a deal- I do everything he asked and was required for clarinet, and he’d keep me as busy on bass as possible. I agreed, and he kept his word. I was in jazz combos and ensembles throughout my time there, and got connected with other musicians forming bands in town as well, and was able to build the skills I needed to play bass at a high level while fulfilling the requirements to get the music education degree.
Fast-forward 18 years, and I’m still living that dual life- educator and working musician. I’ve taught everything from K4 elementary general music to award winning high school bands and orchestras, in both public and private schools, and performed bass, guitar, and occasionally drums for countless festivals, weddings, recording sessions, musicals, and more.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson I had taught myself was that some music was ‘beneath me’ as a player. It meant that rather than listening to the music, regardless of style, and playing only what needed to be played, I would overplay like crazy. I had it pounded into me in certain circles that if you’re a jazz musician, you’re at the pinnacle and everything else is secondary. Try playing in a rock band with that outlook!
Two things broke me of that mindset. The first was a bass bootcamp event I attended and eventually taught at. In a camp of nothing but bass players, there was no ego, no real competition- everyone was just there to learn and get better at their craft. It also exposed me to a lot of different music that I either hadn’t listened to or hadn’t listed to in a long time. I found a real appreciation for even the ‘simplest’ songs and the groove that I just hadn’t had in a long time.
The second was a drummer I worked with in Virginia before moving to Wisconsin. He was a closet bassist himself and had seen some video lessons from Victor Wooten, and a point that he drive into my head when it came to soloing was ‘if you can’t sing it, don’t play it’, as well as solos and playing in general should SAY something, vs being as many notes and tricky phrases as you could play. It opened me up to a world of phrasing I hadn’t thought about, and made me play more musically. Combine that with an immersion in cover band once moving to Milwaukee and needing to check my ego at the door to get a paycheck, and it was a tough but rewarding lesson to unlearn. No music is beneath you, and anything can be enhanced by what you add to it if you play what the song needs, vs. what you want to force onto it.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
When I first moved to Wisconsin in 2013, I was pretty burned out from my first 6 years in education. My plan was to be a full time musician- teach lessons to supplement, but my main bread and butter was going to be gigging. Two things became very clear within about 6 month of doing that. 1- I was never home at night, so maintaining a marriage at that point was pretty difficult. And 2- in order to make money, I had to take shows with folks I did not necessarily enjoy working with for a variety of reasons. Combine those with student loan payments that weren’t going away and missing teaching once I’d been out of it for a year, I decided to pivot back to teaching as the main source of income, while being able to be pickier about the gigs I took. It was a win-win.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bentitusmusic.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/bentitusmusic
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/bentitusmusic
- Linkedin: Ben Titus
- Twitter: @bentitusmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bentitusmusic
- Other: Bandcamp- https://bentitus.bandcamp.com/album/2-years-in-review
