Benjamin Nicholson
“Wrong and strong!”
About Ben
tapes in his mom’s Caravan, eventually picking up the guitar when he was 13 in order to learn to
play the music of blink-182, Nirvana, and Pink Floyd. He went on to receive a BA in music (with
a focus in Electronic Music and Multimedia) from Brown University, an MFA from UChicago, and
a PhD from the University of Southern California in Media Arts + Practice.
While his personal favorite genres of music include post-punk, post-hardcore, and synthpop, Ben is deeply
fascinated by the history of rock and pop music (he even teaches a class at CU Boulder called “Music in the Rock Era”!) and is eager to help students learn music in whatever genres they find most compelling, whether it be classic rock, folk, altrock, pop, or prog (and beyond).
Ben’s Instructional Approach
When it comes to teaching music, Ben prioritizes each individual student’s interests and learning style, creating lesson plans that support students in feeling intrinsically motivated to develop their skills and knowledge as musicians while, critically, having a lot of fun in the process. Specifically, he begins with a “song-first” approach that takes students’ favorite music and, in addition to teaching them how to play specific songs, helps students to understand why they love the songs they do.
Practice Tips
When practicing on your own, the hardest part is often getting started in the first place. Before getting into building skills (like learning a specific part for a song, practicing a scale, or playing to a metronome), give yourself 5 minutes to “warm up” by playing something intuitive and fun; remind yourself of the reason you’re practicing. Once you’ve warmed up, set simple and concrete goals for your practice session (“I will learn to play an E major scale”) and set a timer that feels appropriate to your learning style (15 minutes, 30 minutes); focus your time on your goals and remember that musicianship is built a day at a time over a lifetime – wherever you’ve gotten once your time runs out in a given practice session is that much further than you were before you started!
Favorite Tunes
- Rock – Joy Division
- Pop – Tears for Fears
- Folk – Elliott Smith
- Electronic – Kraftwerk
- Noise – Lightning Bolt
