Following your dreams and building things are goals we all share, despite generational differences. It is no different with today’s guest, multimedia artist Ben Barr. Stephen Jaye interviews Ben and they talk about how he got his start as a musician and as an entrepreneur. Ben also talks about his future plans as an artist. Listen in and be inspired by Ben’s journey.
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Building The Sounds Of The Future With Multimedia Artist Ben Barr
In previous episodes of this show, we’ve talked a little bit about the different generations that we encounter, both in the workforce and in our places where we go and how each generation has different experiences, different outlooks and sometimes different ways of communicating. We’ve always had some pretty positive discussions about how to go about understanding one another as opposed to driving one another.
One of the things that I’ve been encouraged by an emerging trend is amongst the generation behind mine, Generation Z or iGen, that has been referred to in some circles, has had a pretty interesting desire to do a lot of the things that we talked about on this show. There seems to be a strong interest in starting up businesses or starting up something, building something on their own. Representing this particular group of people is the man that produced the intro and outro music to this show, Mr. Ben Barr, who has a multimedia company where he does several different things, including music lessons, video production and producing music for shows. Ben, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
How is everything going for you?
Great. Things are going well. I’m excited to be on the show and have a conversation.
You’re in the Gen Z category. You have your multimedia business. What brought you into that? What got you interested in doing that and made you decide that rather than just a hobby or something you do on the side, that you’re going to turn it into something where you’re going to make money off of it and produce things for lots of different people?
It was an accident. I was just interested in music. I loved it as a hobby when I was younger. I never intended it to be a business, but when I was thirteen, my mom was teaching piano lessons. I’ve been classically trained on piano. Since I was little, I’d been taking piano lessons. She needed help teaching, so I started to help her teach and take on some of her students. That became the first business thing that I did. It was totally by accident. I even think of it as being a business. I thought of it as a service that I was trying to provide to help educate people. That’s where it started for me. It was teaching piano and loving music.
How old were you when you first decided you loved music? Is this something that happened at 4 or 5 years old like you see a lot of people?
As soon as I could walk, my parents made me learn instruments because both of them are musical too. I got a piano right away and then later, I played the French horn for a couple of years. I played the drums a lot and the guitar. I loved music, but the classical music and stuff was boring. I wasn’t into that as much. I was eight years old or something when I was messing around on my dad’s iPad. I found the app GarageBand and I was making music on that. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. It was like a video game but way better. That’s what got me into the music production side of things.
Out of curiosity, what kind of music do you generally enjoy?
I enjoy a lot of kinds of music. I like some pop music, a lot of rap music. I’ve been a big Twenty One Pilots fan. Their newest album wasn’t as great as I’ve heard, but I still like it. I enjoy it. I’m interested in any kind of music. I’ve got open ears. Country music is harder for me to swallow, but I like all other kinds of music.
There’s always going to be a differential on some types of music and others. I’ve always been curious about how musical taste is an indicator, how it intersects with people’s personalities. I’ve read papers on it. The correlation coefficients are pretty low. The most interesting thing I saw from this paper is they said people who like pop music tend to be social, outgoing people, people who like to be at the party. They also ironically said that heavy metal and classical music fans tend to be similar in personality.
That sounds accurate because I’ve heard of crossovers, musicality-wise too, between heavy metal and classical music. I’ve seen videos on it and stuff. That’s interesting. I had no idea.
'I want to be able to break free of that and have something else that's mine, that I can take ownership of and responsibility of for myself.' Share on XThe structure of it. You think of the guitar riff, the same thing with the fast violin. That’s interesting. You started helping your mom with piano lessons and then one thing led to another. What made this transition from, “This is something I’m doing. It’s a hobby. I like teaching people too. Now I’m going to form my own business and develop a client base and stuff?”
Wanting to have my own thing didn’t start until later. I’d teaching piano for a while and then I got sucked into doing video work. I’d never touched a camera before or done anything with video before, but somebody knew I was into the arts, I liked making music and other things. He thought, “Maybe he can shoot some video for my company.” It was an insurance agency. I was asked to come over, tried shooting some video and making video. The owner of this company is a major entrepreneur. He has built other businesses before. I saw what he was doing and the path he was on. That was inspirational to me. I was like, “That looks pretty straight. I want to try that.”
What company was this guy running?
It’s called Trumbull Insurance Agency.
You saw this guy who you had done some video editing for and you saw his path in life essentially. That path appealed to you. Is there any particular reason? Is it just observing it and saying, “This is something I can see myself doing?”
It was the freedom and the energy. He was able to go from one thing to another. He was passionate about everything he was doing. He was the one controlling. He had the reigns in his hand, yet he was taking ownership of decisions in life and the business. I was like, “I want to be able to do that. I don’t want to have to be following other people.”
The cog in the machine?
Yes. I want to be able to break free of that and have something else that’s mine that I can take ownership of and responsibility for myself.
There’s a certain amount of autonomy in that you probably observed. I don’t know if you’ve spent that much time observing people who are cogs in the machine and feel like they’re going through the motions or if this was completely a positive vibe. It’s not so much like, “I don’t want this.” It’s more of a, “I saw this and I want this.”
It was a very positive thing. Before, I was just going along with the motions. I was thinking about college and doing what the next step was, what everybody else was doing. I saw this and I was like, “That’s another path that looks interesting.”
Don’t mind if I ask. Are you going to college or planning to go to college?
I’m not planning to go to college. I totally am open to it. I have no problem with it, but I want to be able to have a clearly defined plan for exactly what I get out of it before I go into it. I’m working. I have my businesses and then I have a part-time job as well. I’m still working. I’m trying not to be lazy and chill in my parents’ basement. No college for now, but I’m open to it in the future for sure.
It’s interesting to hear because one of the studies I read was that it’s not a big decline. It’s just a very small decline, but this is the first generation of people where the percentage of people going to college has declined from the previous. We’ve had probably a century-long trend of college rates going up from 3% to something like 60%, 70%. I might be off probably, but this is the first generation that’s seeing the numbers start to decrease ever so slightly because of exactly, I think, what you’re observing.
The interesting thing about your observation is that it feels like in order to identify that path and this is what you’re looking to do. You’re looking to have a clear path, identify it, figuring out what it is you want. It’s like this insurance guy whose path that you’re following. You’re identifying or building upon, using it as inspiration is probably a better way to put it. It’s something you had to have put yourself out there to get to. You had to have agreed to help your mom give piano lessons first and then start doing the video editing. I believe it requires some level of open-mindedness and curiosity to find that path, which is what it seems like you’re exhibiting with all those kinds of steps you took to get to where you are.
In this season of my life, I’m trying to practice saying yes to as many things as possible and being open to any opportunities that are out there. I want to be able to say, “Yes.” I try to go the extra mile because then I feel like I’m making myself open to as many opportunities as possible.
For anyone out there reading, would you say that this requires saying yes to things that you’re not necessarily excited about because there are some people that are closed off and they only say yes to the things that excite them?
For a while, I had a season in my life when I was 14 through 16 or something like that where I was exactly like that. I was like, “If it doesn’t interest me, I’m not doing it.” That closes so many doors. The doors that opened that have provided the most opportunity are the ones that I wanted to say no to, but I ended up saying yes to.
I feel like anyone can categorize the things that they’re invited to do, the things they’re asking to do into three categories of things. The things that excite you and you’re going to say yes to no matter what and the things that repel you and you’re going to say no to no matter what. I think those are always going to be there. There’s always going to be that thing that you don’t want to do. For anyone, there’s also this middle ground, which is where at least half of all invitations, maybe even more, maybe 60%, 70%, lie in this middle section of saying, “I’m neither excited nor automatically repulsed by it. Do I do it or do I not?”
That’s where the difference lies between people who are closed off. Even the most closed-off people are going to have the things that they’re used to, they’re comfortable with and the people who are open to say yes to more of those things but not so many that they get so scattered that they have no area of focus. That’s amazing.
One of the things I wanted to touch on was we’ve talked a little bit about the generational differences. One thing as a Millennial myself, I have this theory in my head that generations respond to what they see before them. Us Millennials, we’re starting to reject our parents, the Baby Boomers, ideology of working 70, 80, 90, 100-hour weeks as a virtue. We saw our parents’ generation do that and then we’re saying, “No, there’s more to life than that,” especially when oftentimes it didn’t even work out for them. They would still get laid off. Their companies still didn’t care about them. Is there anything you’re observing about your parents or even members of my generation? I can take the shade that’s making you or more people in your generation prefer this path of to have control of your life and want you to do the thing that you’re passionate about like you’re saying.
Honestly, as I was talking about before, it’s all positive reasons why I wanted to take my own path, my own route. It wasn’t looking at my parents or that generation and seeing something that I didn’t like. I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by positive role models around me. It was more so positive. I think most of my generation see that too. Even on Instagram, most of it is pretty fake, but they see the happy, self-successful entrepreneur model out there and that’s what they want. That’s my take on it, though. What are your thoughts on that?
I initially had the thought and this is related to a discussion in one of my previous episodes, which is that the way my generation is responding to these hundred-hour workweeks and saying, “There’s more to life than that,” it seemed to me like some people in your generation will respond into my generation’s student loan debt going to college.
That’s true, though. I haven’t thought about that. I guess I did think about that, especially with college. That probably played a big factor in my decision, seeing student loans and people get bogged down for the first part of their 20s and 30s and then it’s harder for them to get the liftoff into the rest of their life. That is something that I’ve noticed.
Another thing I thought we were responding to is some of these college majors that don’t lead to any jobs or only lead to low-paying jobs, which is very similar, but it’s interesting to hear it from a way more positive perspective. Some of us Millennials did ruminate on it. We don’t want the 100-hour weeks and put our whole lives into something. I say that, totally throwing the shade on myself because I do that too. I said, “I don’t want that.” I found even with launching this particular show, things got better for me personally when I focused more on what is it that I do want? What am I doing with this show? I’m hoping readers will be inspired.
It seems like you’ve done a good job of getting to that positive energy relatively early on in life and saying, “The generations before me screwed up.” I don’t want to throw shade on them. They’ve also done a lot of great stuff. The Baby Boomers brought us to a level of prosperity that we would never have imagined before that. I show a great amount of respect for that but still focusing on so many people are building their own thing and it sounds great.
Try to go the extra mile, because then you're making yourself open to as many opportunities as possible. Share on XI’m excited for what our generation has. I know a lot of people probably aren’t, but I’m excited.
Any of my previous guests have talked about those generational differences have also come at it from a very positive point of view because part of it is about understanding that some things are different. Just because it’s different doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. Sometimes change brings on something better.
The time period for the Baby Boomers was they didn’t have the opportunities that we have. They had no choice but to work hundreds of hours a week for their company or employer. Nowadays, we’ve got a lot more flexibility with that.
Is there any particular development, whether it’d be technological or social, in any way that you would credit with having those opportunities?
The internet online business, that’s crazy, especially education. Another thing that I considered with colleges is that as soon as Corona made education be okay to be online, I feel like the price of colleges should have decreased a lot. I think they’re still rising. I don’t know for sure but it’s still expensive. You can find most of the information you need online through the internet.
Let’s say you were looking to learn a new skill, if you were looking to learn business marketing or something like that, what would be your first instinct as to how to go about learning that skill?
I’ll go to YouTube. I do a lot of music production. I helped produce a worship album and have done different production things for artists and stuff over the years. Everything I learned about music production was on YouTube. The classical music and stuff, I was formally taught and that was nice too. That accelerated me pretty fast, but YouTube taught me everything like the tech side of things.
Learning through YouTube sounds like a slightly different way of looking at even education. One of the things that formal education does is it gets you that degree, that certification, that thing to throw onto a resume, whereas going to YouTube is more about, “How do I get the advice to quickly do it?” At least from any time I’ve learned something over YouTube, you partially end up learning by doing. You see the YouTube video, but then you do and you adjust. Do you see this as a shift into how we go about learning the skills we need to learn to get to where we want to go?
I was homeschooled for pretty much my entire life. I realized early on that I learned the best when I skinned my knees a couple of times. By doing it and getting the experience of I failed the first time, that’s perfect, then I’m going to not fail as hard the second time. If I go for it and then I mess up a couple of times, then by the 3rd or 4th time, I usually have my feet under me and I can do it a lot better. That’s the best way I found to go for things.
Would you say it’s important to develop a different attitude toward failure than what you see in a lot of people? School especially teaches you that the worst thing you can do is fail a class.
Failure is super important. I don’t know. There are lots of quotes about it. I can’t think of any. Success is just a failure away.
I believe someone could probably fill a 100-page book with just quotes about the importance of failure from various people over the ages. If someone reading was struggling with, say, the fear of failure, fearing of whatever it is, what would you say to these people that they should do to overcome that?
Just do it. Go and fail a couple of times. Maybe you can start with something that’s a little bit easier more inside. You don’t have to go crazy here but maybe pick something a little bit outside your comfort zone to target first and then work your way up.
It’s like baby steps. Pick that one thing. Ask out that person that blew up from there to businesses and everything else like that. Amongst the people you know around your age range, do you feel like many eighteen-year-olds have gotten to the point where they’ve embraced the need to fail and learn that way or is it still a struggle?
I haven’t seen it from too many of my peers yet. I know I haven’t seen that around me, people being willing to fail hard. I’m a weird example. I have my own YouTube channel. I’m willing to get outside of my comfort zone a little bit more than my friends, I would say, but it takes practice for sure. It takes a while to get used to being uncomfortable and you’re never completely used to it otherwise, you’d be uncomfortable.
I feel like there are so few people. You think of Richard Branson or something like that are constantly accustomed to always being outside of their comfort zone. It’s still always a push. One thing I’m wondering is do your friends or some other people you know, especially if some of them are inspired by your example and story, the same way you were inspired by this other example you’ve heard, ever come to you and ask you for advice on to say how to get out of your comfort zone or how to start building things of their own?
Maybe not like that specifically. Whenever they want something outside of the box done or to do something that’s a little bit different, they’ll usually come and ask me for some advice.
I bet it feels good to help people in that particular capacity too.
Help people be uncomfortable. I love doing that.
Your business focuses on music and video. Is that the plan that you see for yourself going forward or do you see yourself expanding to more different avenues?
I definitely see different avenues in the future. My dream since I was a little kid has always been making a living from my own music. I’m starting to scratch the surface but releasing my own music, being able to tour, do shows and stuff like that. That is on the front of my mind. That’s my dream that I want to go hard. In the future, have a business. Maybe I could do some production company or video company. Making a living for my music is a top priority for me.
Have you gotten any traction from whether it’s music you perform or music you write?
I have some traction. I haven’t been full all-in on it yet, though. I’m dabbling in a lot of things like teaching piano, working in a part-time job, doing some video work and different things like that. I’m spread out, but my burning desire is my music. That’s the thing that I’m going to be tackling pretty hardcore in the next couple of months to get that under my belt. I have a little bit of traction but not much. I need a lot more.
It seems like your success with your music and video production came from putting yourself out there, saying yes to things, being open and curious. It seems like as long as you apply those same exact principles to selling and performing your music, it should go pretty well.
That’s the scary part, though, because the thing that’s closest to your heart, that’s the one that you don’t want to be uncomfortable with. You don’t want to put that out there. The conversation is making me realize. That’s why it’s most important to be uncomfortable with that too.
There’s a saying before, we all have a comfort zone that in any point in your life, it’s always either expanding or contracting. Very rarely, it’s ever staying in the same zone. For example, if you’re only eight restaurants, one of them is eventually going to close and then you only have seven if you don’t try something new. The same thing can go for movies you like, bands you like or something like that. That’s an awesome way to get yourself out there a little bit more. Are you looking to perform or write more?
Pick something a little bit outside your comfort zone to target first and then work your way up. Share on XI want to perform more. I want to start building connections in the music industry and working with other people. I’m doing my graduation party because I just graduated from high school. My graduation party is going to be a benefit concert for a charity. That should be fun. That’s going to be some great performance experience. I’ll get to play some original songs and do some covers. Hopefully, it will be super fun.
I feel like that’s the last thing that was on my mind when I was graduating high school. I was more like, “How do I start doing those college things I’m looking forward to?” You also said to pay the bills and get the expenses that you’re working out a part-time job. How does that work?
My dad planted a church. It’s an opportunity. He’s going to push video stuff heavily in this new church. I’m the part-time video guy working there. It’s a great opportunity.
That’s one of the things that I’m hoping to contribute to in the future. A lot of people, when they’re starting out their business or starting off whatever, needs some revenue, some income to keep the lights on, keep their home paid for. They might not necessarily want to work a full 40-hour a week or 40-plus hour week job that’s going to drain all your energy in this part-time. Resources are an amazing way to encourage other people to dabble in things and get their own businesses started.
I’m still living at my parents’ house too, so I don’t have any bills to pay. I’m just saving money. It’s nice.
Are you saving up money for further investments in your business and stuff like that?
Yes, investments in business. I’m trying to learn how to invest in general, like in the stock market and stuff like that, but I want to be better educated before I start dabbling in that.
You don’t have to go on Reddit and invest in whatever.
No, especially with the freakout with the cryptocurrency and stuff. Everybody is freaking out with that and losing their minds. It’s crazy.
Anytime I think of someone who’s very inconsistent, I say, “You change your mind more often than the price of Bitcoin or something.” It’s a little bit all over the place. One of the interesting things, though, it sounds like is that part of it is this whole idea of short-term versus long-term thinking. You’re saving money to invest in your business, not saving money to buy a new toy, buy booze or whatever it is. You still can at eighteen.
No. You can’t do anything. You can only buy lottery tickets. It’s so dumb.
You can vote.
I can vote and I missed the elections. It’s sad.
Whatever it is that you can and can’t buy at eighteen, you’re still thinking on a longer-term horizon. Do you think that’s another important aspect of building something?
It’s not like I’m very smart or anything when it comes to money. I am a natural saver. I naturally don’t spend money. It’s nice.
Those are great habits to have. I feel like it’s a good habit to always be setting aside money as opposed to spending every single dollar that you ever earn. I want to give everyone a chance. You do video editing and music instruction. You did the intro and outro music to my show. If anyone else out here reading who wants to get ahold of you, wants to find out more about your services and wants tracks or videos, how would someone best go about contacting you?
Head to my YouTube channel. It’s Ben Barr on YouTube. There’s an email in the description box or something like that.
Is there an area within video and music editing that you specialize in, that you were looking to get more into?
On my YouTube channel, I’ve been exploring. I like to think of it as short films or short movies. It’s usually a vlog, but usually, it’s centered on some theme. I make the music for it. It’s fun for me because I get to score it and I pretend that I’m scoring my own movie. I also film everything. There’s no script or anything. It’s just like, “Thanks for my life or events that happen in my life and stuff like that.” That’s been fun. That’s a new thing that I’ve been dabbling in.
How long are these short films generally?
It’s 5 to 10 minutes usually, something like that.
Is that also going to be part of your offerings as well?
To make for other people? I totally would. If someone asked me, I’d be down. As far as business goes, I’m willing to try anything with film or music. I’d do anything.
Can I give you a little bit of an open forum? Any advice that you would have for anyone that has something that you’re interested in, whether it be music or anything else that says, “I want to pursue this?” There are many dozens of reasons people don’t pursue what they care about in this world.
You got to go for it. You got to do it because you love it too. It’s okay to love those types of things. Those things that even other people maybe you’ve heard that is worthless or they don’t like it. You were given a love for that thing for a reason, so you need to pursue it.
Have you ever been given any of those negative points?
You don't want to be uncomfortable with the thing closest to your heart. Share on XMaybe a couple of times. Honestly, the hardest battle to fight is the one that’s in your head most of the time, where you’re the one calling yourself that. I don’t hear it from that many people that are like, “That’s worthless.” It’s usually myself. It’s correcting your negative thinking.
One of the most important points that anyone reading can get out of this is that usually, the battle is in your head and you have input. One of the things that inspired me to do this show is people would have input. Some people say, “Play it safe. Don’t take the risk.” Other people are saying, “Go for it.” At the very end, it’s your head that is inputting that information, deciding which information to listen to or even how you feel about yourself, how confident you feel in your ability. A lot of the issues oftentimes is, “I don’t think I’m capable or deserving of this dream of mine.”
You got to fight that voice.
Any specific thing that you’ve ever done or tried to do to fight that voice?
I’m a Christian. I read the Bible a lot. I pray and I connect with the Lord. Christians believe that God is a loving God. He speaks and believes in all of his children and every single person too. Even if you’re not a Christian, you can still pray to God. He’ll believe in you and love you. He’ll be supportive of you. That’s the strongest way that I fight the voice.
That’s amazing if it works and you get those positive messages. Sometimes a big part of that also sounds to me like taking some time. To speak to God, you have to take that time. You’re not perpetually busy every minute of every day and planned out every minute. You’re in front of a computer, TV or something. Get rid of that clutter that’s constantly being inputted into your mind.
Meditation helps too with decluttering.
Hopefully, everyone out there reading can find their practice. This is covered in a couple of the other episodes, too that’s called Decluttering That Hole: Getting Out Of Your Head. I feel like a lot of people, when you take that time, you take that deep breath. You go out, whether it’s going out into nature, praying by yourself or anything else. You get back to that true purpose, that true desire in your heart and you see yourself. Why not just go for it? That seems to be the message. That pretty much sums up everything in this show. The message is like, “Take a deep breath. Start doing what you’re afraid of and what you want to do.”
Take a deep breath and then do it. Take the plunge. Jump in.
Any last words for our readers?
Subscribe to Ben Barr on YouTube. That’s all.
Check out some of those short movies. Ben, thank you so much for joining. I’m happy with my show’s intro and outro music. I’m excited about the entrepreneurial’s yield that your generation seems to be bringing in and also about the positive vibe that it comes from. It doesn’t come from a hatred of what came before you but coming from this hole, it’s like, “I met someone running their own business and I want to do that myself.” It’s such a positive vibe. Hopefully, we can create that positive future where more people are able to do what they care about. Take a deep breath and go for it. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you to everyone else for joining us on the show. Stay tuned for more episodes where I will be bringing on more guests and more interviews with people who are doing in some capacity to things that they really care about and they really want to do.
Important Links:
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About Ben Barr
Ben Barr is a multimedia creator, specializing in both video and music.