My name is Peter Benjamin and I'm an experienced producer, composer, songwriter, guitar player, performer, and educator. I'm new to the Corvallis area from Seattle where I've spent most of my music career. I'm now bringing my extensive experience in both making and teaching music to the greater southern Willamette Valley (Corvallis, Philomath, Albany, Lebanon, and Eugene). Below are current rates along with descriptions of the courses or programs I offer:
Remote and in-studio rates:
$35 - 30 minute session
$45 - 45 minutes session
$60 - 1 hour session
in-person, in-home rates:
$38 - 30 minutes
$50 - 45 minutes
$70 - 60 minutes
$55/hour for 2 hours or more
Master Class - Advanced concepts and practicum for developing/performing musicians
For the musicians who have successfully developed a degree of embodied musical fluency, I offer a comprehensive set of tools with which to conceptualize the language and performance of music. We will explore the concept of tonality and tonal language as guiding principles with which to understand and master harmonic and melodic dimensions of music. We will also develop our rhythmic fluency and literacy as part of our embodied and conceptual knowledge base as we explore the idiomatic landscape of various musical styles. Particular emphasis on composition, arrangement, improvisation, and recording technology will be used to focus our skills in this advanced track. Master class forums will be held for artists in this series featuring sets of music (several songs instead of just one) and opportunities to perform their music with established area musicians.
Songwriter/Media Development
Over the past several years, I have had the privilege of working with many incredibly talented young aspiring songwriters and performers who are well positioned to bring their artistry and unique musical voices to the world. For these young artists, one of the most important skills they will need to be competitive in today's music industry is the ability to self-produce their own music. Self-production is an essential tool not only in expressing your music in its final audio form, but also for aiding in the creative process of composition and songwriting. The principle goal of this series of transform initial song ideas into fully realized songwriter demos, which are one of the essential currencies of aspiring professional songwriters.
Artists also have access media development services aimed at increasing the exposure and availability of their music to the digital media space- the arena in which music is now primarily experienced. This service will get artists' music registered with a Performance Rights Organization (PRO, like ASCAP or BMI), which ensures that songwriters get paid when their music is heard. The media service also helps with getting artist music on streaming platforms for maximum digital presence.
Atypical and Neurodivergent creativity
I have had a significant degree of experience over the past 10 years interacting with students on the autism spectrum, as well as those presenting a range of other atypical/neurodivergent learning patterns such as ADHD, dyscalculia (difficulty with symbols, including music notation!), and dysgraphia (difficulty with transcribing material into written format). You can begin to see how the traditional approach to learning music which is characterized by the already difficult process of reading or interpreting highly graphical notation and then ‘mapping’ the visual field onto the the body (fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, hips, legs, feet, etc.) might represent a major challenge to some learners.
Despite some of the difficulties that often arise, I continue to see profound levels of creative potential with atypical students that I hope to help unlock. To do this, I often keep open the option to explore music learning and creativity through dialogue and conversation through a process I call 'creative dialectic.' Creative dialectic offers a way of understanding the creative process through a much broader range of ideas and concepts such as games, athletics, language, philosophy, psychology, history, and other areas of artistic pursuit (visual art, design, etc.). This process is actually similar to and inspired by my time studying composition at the college level with renown composer Gregory Youtz.
In my experience, students who have difficulty with the process of learning to embody music making are often extremely good at thinking about creativity, problem solving, deep learning, and their own subjective aesthetic experience on a more intellectual level. It's my personal believe that world can benefit profoundly from their perspective!
Please explore my site at www.peterbenjaminmusic.org for more information and many audio samples of my song releases, music for media, podcast, and other offerings.
- Peter B.