Ben Johnson

Student Type:	Correspondence Guitar Lessons, Music Careers Mentoring Program
Location:	Chicago, USA
mp3	Metal.mp3 Baroque Concerto.mp3 Chopin Prelude No 6 in Bmin.mp3

Born in 1985, my life in music began at age 6, with the piano. Early on, I developed a strong love for music from the Baroque, Classic, and Romantic periods. Later, at around 14, I discovered heavy metal, and I started playing guitar at 16. Unfortunately, at the same time, I basically stopped playing piano.

I was focusing on the guitar at that point, but I wasn't really serious about it or about music in general until age 21, when I began taking correspondence lessons from Tom Hess, in hopes to find the best path toward my musical goals. Without the enormous amounts of inspiration, knowledge, and motivation he has passed along, I would probably not be pursuing a career in music today. In fact, his teaching has been so effective that my love for the piano has re-kindled, and in a short amount of time, I’ve already regained those abilities I previously thought would take many years to do so.

I'm currently a student of the Columbia College Audio Arts and Acoustics program, majoring in Audio Design and Production. In 2006, I co-wrote the musical score for an internationally acclaimed documentary, called 9/11: Press For Truth. I've composed several other orchestral pieces, and I greatly enjoy recording music, luthiery, electronics, digital painting, photography, 3D modeling, and film making.