The Been-Jammins of Benjamin

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Benjamin Tolar Reynolds began in the year 2000, conceived by Keith and Rebecca Reynolds deep in the heart of Texas in the town of San Antonio. Although Benjamin had exposure to the piano since he was just a baby, perhaps aiding in the development of his perfect pitch, Benjamin really began his journey in adolescence, when he took band as an elective in the 6th grade.

Benjamin's band experience falls under the domain of instruments known as percussion. He was mentored in percussion for seven years by Jeffrey Yates, who once referred to Benjamin as the "wildcard". In his freshman year of high school, Benjamin lettered in the varsity band, and obtained his position on the drumline as the fourth bass-drummer. While marching with the Smithson Valley Ranger Band around the state of Texas on bass drum and later the quad toms, Benjamin continued advancing his the area of the marimba, adopting the four-mallet technique and performing solos, not only in the auditorium, but at regional competitions where he made the regional band every year, and the state solo competitions, where he received a 1 at the state level for his performance of "Moon Chasers" by Mark Ford. Benjamin's marimba skills challenged even the lead marimba player and pit captain, despite his occupation with the drumline. He also continued his exposure of the piano, using it as a tool to improve on the marimba, then using the marimba as a tool to improve on the piano. Benjamin was also a part of the Smithson Valley's jazz band on the piano, and he played a variety of percussion instruments for the West Side Story musical, featured on a jazz vibraphone solo from West Side Story's "Cool." Benjamin would then go on to be accepted into the School of Music at Texas State University with more solos, and through that he was then interviewed and accepted into the highly selective major known as Sound Recording Technology.

With merely 14 other students in his freshman class, Benjamin began his studies as an audio engineer under the head director Mark Erickson. The majority of Benjamin's classes actually resided in the downtown of San Marcos, separate from the physical school of Texas State University, in a former fire station converted into a recording studio, fittingly known as Fire Station Studios. The classes here were as extensive as they were intensive, with deep dives in a variety of areas in the field of audio engineering. Along with these new studies of audio, Benjamin continued his old studies of percussion under Charles "Butch" Miles, who drummed with numerous notorious jazz stars and who even helped define jazz itself. Benjamin's studies also consisted of classes of music theory and aural skills at the School of Music, which Benjamin passed with great ease, for he had perfect pitch that gave him all the answers to the aural skills, and for the music theory, Benjamin made the comparison of the copious amount of music theory assignments to "fun lil' crossword puzzles." However, the classes for Fire Station Studios kept him busy. Here, he was exposed to all kinds of hardware and software and all of their applications. The assignments here were comparable to actual studio session jobs, involving recording and mixing artists and entire ensembles. Fire Station Studios had its own testing of aural skills, where the perfect pitch didn't come in as handy. Benjamin would construct projects implementing all these new technologies and techniques, including his capstone that entails an entire recorded album mixed in surround-sound that incorporates the genre of reggae with jazz stylings, influenced by Groundation, to the orchestral soundtrack of the Pirates of the Caribbean by Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer. Here, Benjamin is pioneering pirate-orchestra-reggae-jazz, exemplifying not only his newly acquired audio engineering understandings from Sound Recording Technology, but how Benjamin can draw connections not just in music but in all sorts of different perspectives.

During his time at Texas State University, Benjamin interviewed for a programming position for KTSW 89.9, the Other Side of Radio, thinking he would get to apply what insight he had acquired with his studies of audio engineering as well as getting to further these studies. He was expecting a sort of behind-the-scenes scenario of production, but he had actually applied for a spot as a radio DJ, which involved speaking live on-air, almost like a character for the radio. There were plenty of applications for his experience in audio, such as running their mixer, mic, and queue system, but new experiences arose as well. Benjamin was not just playing for an audience as he had before, but now he was speaking to an audience, modifying his voice and form of speech, and creating context and descriptions simultaneously for whatever song he was playing on the radio. KTSW 89.9 branded themselves as "the Other Side of Radio." This idea consisted of playing the opposite of what you'd expect from radio, still complying with FCC standards of course. So the songs that Benjamin conversed about live on-air were underground and local songs that he never heard before, with unfamiliar sounds and stylings to both him and his audience. 

Benjamin initially dove into his expedition of running live sound with John Hagee Ministries at the megachurch that is Cornerstone. Under their audio department director Cary Smith, Benjamin was introduced to not just running live sound for the preachings and services in the Life Center, but to their very own recording studio and broadcasting department, similarly to Texas State University's Fire Station Studios and KTSW 89.9. Cornerstone is one of the largest churches in Texas, and John Hagee is known internationally, with his sermons transmitted worldwide. Here, Benjamin was introduced to James Graham, an associate to Jaws Audio LLC. Through James, Benjamin landed an internship at Pick's Bar, not far from Cornerstone. Pick's is a venue fully furnished with lighting and sound systems all rigged to a single crow's nest of a Front of House that oversaw the packed venue, with scores of serious patrons with serious wallets, yearning for the performances that were at times entirely managed by Benjamin himself. The majority of the concerts hosted at Pick's were 80s-90s cover bands, with original bands performing on Sundays. The main entertainment for Pick's had to be Retro Nouveau, a live karaoke band that'd play alongside whoever signed up, playing whatever song they signed up for. This made running live sound especially interesting for Benjamin, since both the vocalist and entire genre of music would vary, calling for additional support from the audio engineers to make adjustments depending on the genre or the type of vocalist. Benjamin would also get to witness DJing from the DJ's perspective, learning more about what DJing was all about.

Benjamin found himself apart of a serious of ensembles.  In addition to the ensembles previously listed, Benjamin was apart of Texas State University's Concert Band. He auditioned for Texas State University's Drumline, but he had acquired a tear in his ACL from a capture-the-flag accident from a recent high school graduation party, rendering him unable to march, let alone supporting dozens of pounds of percussion equipment as he had done before. So he transferred over the the concert band, however it was the bands 100th year anniversary, marking a centennial concert for Benjamin where he played literal rocks on a piece dedicated to the indigenous peoples that occupied the springs of San Marcos millennia prior. Benjamin was also apart of Texas State University's Steel Drum Band, adding another pitched percussion instrument to Benjamin's tool belt, which he then later recorded himself playing for his reggae capstone. Another ensemble Benjamin took part in was the premiering of Texas State University's Rock Ensemble, where members would suggest rock songs to cover together live at Tantra's Coffeehouse. Benjamin selected the song "Into the Void" by Black Sabbath to lead and drum on, utilizing his new drumset learnings from Charles "Butch" Miles. Benjamin would later take these teachings with along with him to ASAH Creative Studios ran by Charles Reid, where he gives lessons on the drums and piano to young upcoming drummers and pianists such as himself. At ASAH Creative Studios, Benjamin met a fellow instructor and fellow Texas State University attendee Sebastian Thomas, who Benjamin recorded for his saxophone and guitar parts on the reggae capstone. Benjamin has also joined in one of Cornerstone's praise and worship teams to perform piano and cajon.