“What do you do?”
I’m a musician.
“Right. So . . . what do you do?”
Okay, fair question. No two music careers are the same. This beautiful, crazy profession I’m in comes in all shapes and sizes. From teaching to gigging playing live at events; from the writing room to the studio; from music theory to music therapy, the church of musicians is broad.
“Right. So . . . what do you do?”
As I’ve set up Ben Trigg Music I’ve focussed on three major areas: live music, notation and recording.
There’s one fairly straightforward reason for this: income. Live music and ‘production work’ (my catch-all word for things done from my home studio – the notation and recording bit) have by far and away been the two biggest areas of income for me since I started out over a decade ago. I might be your fairly typical ‘portfolio’ musician, but that breadth of experience has made I think a greater contribution to all parts of my career than if I just focused on working in one area exclusively.
Here’s a bit more about each area:
Live Music
Keep music live if you want to keep it alive.
Too cheesy? Yeah, it’s pretty bad. But it’s slightly true. No, it’s very true.
I supply bands for weddings, anniversaries and parties – from soloists to 7-piece function setups. You can read more about the whole process here, but in essence, with years of experience I’ve got it down to a tee to make sure every step is smooth for the clients and the event itself is enjoyable and goes down a storm.
You’ll usually find me on keyboards, or guitar, or sometimes bass, or if I’m really lucky, drums and/or percussion. And singing (with or without a microphone!).
Notation Services
My love of all things music notation goes right back to my formative education, and in particular, my time at the University of York where I spent time in scores ranging from Baroque to esoteric contermporary classical music. I grew to appreciate and understand the finer points of music engraving, even having the privilege of sitting down with a professional music engraver for several hours for some hands-on experience engraving the score of a new piece from a well-known composer for an established publisher!
As well as composing and arranging my own material, I’m frequently called upon to produce song scores (piano and voice, as well as single-line leadsheets) especially for church worship songwriters, choir scores for self-publishing arrangers, and fully-orchestrated multi-movement works for performance. This is the kind of work that truly brings out the inner geek!
Recording
Over the years I’ve built up a tidy recording rig and set it up at Beaten Track Studio, the name for my home premises where I produce tracks for churches, solo artists, video producers and more. You’ll usually find me using Logic Pro X with a controller keyboard, a guitar nearby and coffee. Or something a little stronger for the late night sessions.
But wait . . . there’s more!
Then there’s all the extra bits. I’ve done MIDI editing, orchestration, arrangement and transcription; I’ve been a repetiteur, an MD and a consultant. It’s always fun to see what’s around the corner in this job.
So, that’s what I do. Does that answer your question?
ben trigg music 