We recently connected with Dan Anderson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Dan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I started playing musical instruments in the 1st Grade. I took violin lessons with one of the local music teachers in my hometown, Beth Habicht. She really was the first person to teach me how to read notes and understand music. After that, I started playing the saxophone in 5th Grade in addition to the violin, and was taught by Jeanette Jenson, who I still consider to be one of the main reasons I continued and continue to do music and music education. I felt like I was very strongly encourage all through elementary and middle school to do music, practice and become better by teachers like Mike Andersen, Jeanette Jenson, Beth Habicht and Melanie Loy. However, in high school, I feel like I wasn’t pushed like I was in earlier schooling. I really wish I had people in those years pushing me as hard instrumentally as I did when I was younger. As I continued to learn music, I think that my ability to read/sight read music has given me a lot of opportunities (and let me get away with not practicing as much some times) and just being able to understand music to an aesthetic level. One of the biggest obstacles to getting better and learning more about music was honestly myself. Self doubt, outside phenomena, etc sometimes made it harder for me to see the future, the bigger plan or even a plan in general to just move forward.

Dan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Dan Anderson and I’m a music educator, musician with groups like HUNNY BEAR and OnlyDans, a composer for school and my own groups and freelancer, playing a number of instruments for musical, other side projects, recordings and realistically anything. I started playing instruments when I was in 1st Grade, and have continued to grasp new instruments through my life. I went to Concordia College – Moorhead for Instrumental Music Education so that I could pass on the love for music that was instilled in me by some truly inspiring educators through my life, but also be able to pursue and continue my passion for performing, composing, etc. I love the sense of accomplishment I get from both watching a student of mine excel musically and being able to perform on a stage later that night in front of an audience. I don’t believe myself to be below average at any of the things I do in my career. I’m an accomplished educator, with many high performing groups on my resume and I’ve found success as a musical performer.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

HUNNY BEAR is the musical project that is the most personal and closest to my heart. I’m very passionate about jazz, but especially jazz in the vein of funk, city pop, jazz-funk, etc. As I started HUNNY BEAR, it took an incredibly long time to get off the ground. From member changes, to a pandemic, there’s been a number of obstacles in the way of the success of the group. There were many times I wanted to give up. From being unable to schedule gigs, to having members who weren’t as committed, I’ve grown and learned how to better manage, book, design, compose, do almost everything in a band. Now, we’re booking consistently around the Twin Cities, looking to start touring during the summer to some further in state and out of state locations and working on our first album. To say that I was able to last through it all for years is an understatement.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think the easy answer would be to say get out there, buy your friends’ merchandise, pay for their albums. I think a lot of people don’t understand the impact it has on us as artists and creatives when people simply stream our albums, like our content on our socials, share our posts and material around to their peers and interact with us whether it’s by commenting or sending us a direct message. I understand not every one has some open schedule or open wallet, but just being able to help your local artists and creatives share around their content and create an environment that allows us to thrive by being seen and heard is very appreciated. Most of those things just take a quick double tap, and I think if everyone did that for the locals they love, we’d have an even healthier local arts scene.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hunnybearjazz.wixsite.com/hunny-bear
• Instagram: instagram.com/hunnybearjazz
• Facebook: facebook.com/hunnybearjazz
• Youtube: youtube.com/@hunnybearjazz
• Other: Other projects: IG: @onlydansband Personal: IG: @olddanandthesea

Image Credits
Nathan Johnston Shannon McGuire Dan Anderson