In a biweekly series of features, we’re inviting Minnesota artists to introduce themselves to our audience. Today: Ben Farmer, a Minneapolis producer working at the intersection of music and technology.

My name is Ben Farmer. I started making music during my freshman year of college at the University of Minnesota. Before that, I always loved listening to and discovering music with my friends in high school. I was involved in choir and band, and I took a few years of piano lessons as a kid; shout-out to my parents for forcing me to do that. I started making beats in my dorm room using Logic with my little MIDI keyboard and some headphones. I didn't tell anyone that I made music because I was afraid of an underwhelming response…that would have killed me. So, I kept it to myself for the most part and shared stuff with people that I trusted.

While I was at the university, I took a music theory course, which helped me get my bearings with music. Then I took a sound recording class that was in Ferguson Hall my second year. There was a little music studio there on the second floor that I walked into and was like, “Oh s***, this is cool.” After taking that class, I was able to utilize that room up until I graduated. I made a lot of connections there - like r_ck_s, who was already tapped in with a lot of cool and creative people. A lot of the connections that I still have to this day formed in that studio.

I love bringing people into my space and getting as much into a song as possible. I think it's really fun to collaborate with people, making music should be fun. I get a kick out of seeing a new face coming in and hopping on something or just doing something random. There's a lot of beauty in adding variety in that way. More recently, I've been taking more of a backseat approach in producing. I'm surrounded by so many great producers and artists and not everyone in the room can have their hands on the wheel at once. I love coming in with an idea here or there if I hear something. What I've learned lately is to just shut the f*** up sometimes, let certain ideas or things play out.

Going with the flow 

Recently, I’ve found myself coming in at the 80% mark on a song or a project and trying to help get it to the finish line. I feel strongly about my ear: knowing when certain things are good, if it's doing too much, or if it's missing like a little moment. That last 20% of anything is always the hardest and most arduous part because you've spent so much time putting yourself into it.  You can get lost in the details at that point.

It's hard to put into words. You know when you know, and you also know when something isn't working. Just getting things started is important. If I start with a melody, even if I don't love it, I might still put some drums on it. Then, once I make some drums, I'll just delete the melody and try to come up with something new. I love recycling ideas, keeping them churning until something connects with me or with someone I'm working with. I've learned how to move on from stuff quickly over the years, which is great. At first, you don't have that luxury because you're just figuring everything out. But over time, it's more of a taste thing. It either gives you a stank face or it doesn’t. 

I’m not a Buddhist, but I'm very Zen in my demeanor. I’m cool with letting things play out as do. I don't force things that often. I don't have strong opinions a lot of the time unless it’s musical.  I've done meditation and breathing exercises a lot in the past to help with my mental health.

Exploring the intersection of music and technology

The idea of a meditation app came in when Philli Irvin, founder of ITS (Intro to Success) asked me to develop an idea that would fit between art and tech for the 2021 ITS Factory festival. Healing and community tied into what Philly and the rest of the team wanted to do with ITS this year. I love music, so I wanted it to be musically involved. I think that's a big part of meditation, atmospheric sound, and beauty that can help you get into a better headspace.

The goal was to make something that was not only fun to mess around with from a musical point of view, but also helpful day-to-day. I've gotten a lot of good feedback from users who were like, “Yo, I use this daily,” or like, “Yo, this has really been helping me out.” You never know whether what you're doing is going to have an impact. Even a small impact, like a couple of people reaching out with positive feedback, was enough for me. 

Another piece for ITS Factory was the sound installation. I was trying to brainstorm, drawing pictures of stuff on my notepad. I drew this picture of this hexagon with people around it waving their arms. The idea was to have a person on each side of this hexagon where each side is a single note of a chord. I was trying to think of something that was going to be interactive and designed to be used at its maximum capacity. It turned out better than I thought it was going to, honestly, thanks to everyone that helped out. I was working on the electronic piece of it starting in June. Finding the right sensors, figuring out the environment that it needed, and prototyping it with some cardboard in my basement. August started, and it looked like s***. I knew it had to look cool, so I got help from Brad from Northeast Makers who built the tower itself. Zak Khan made chord progressions where each chord had six notes, and that  added to the experience.

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An elaboration on collaboration 

Early on, I was collaborating with anyone who wanted to. Over time, you learn what kinds of people you want to work with. These days, for me, it's people who are also self-motivated. I still love teaching people who I work with anything that I know if they’re interested, but these days I want to get in with someone who has their own thing going on so it’s more of a collaboration. Over time, you just make friends doing this stuff, and then you just work more with them. That's what I would say to anyone, find your people and try to build a community with them.

There is a handful of papa mbye demos that are especially meaningful to me, but they're still in the works, so I don't know when they'll come out. ICEPACK, which I made with Huhroon this past summer, is super meaningful, too. I love working with Huhroon. There are songs with Essjay The Afrocentric Ratchet coming that we’re hoping to finish up this winter as well as a project with Huhroon. Most of the production for that was done by Zak Khan, but I'm excited to try to finish that one up. A lot of it is already there, it needs the wheels to start turning again. I'm excited for that because Huhroon is amazing and I think people will like what they hear.

Performing with papa, Huhroon, and FruitPunchLoverBoy at 7th St Entry was amazing. I will admit I was tired towards the end. About halfway through papa's set, I was like, “Damn, we're only halfway through?” But it was such a blast. Someone’s comment on Instagram was like, “There wasn't a bad song the whole night,” and I agree. I’m biased, but I was excited to play every song once it started. I was like, “Oh yeah, we get to play this one!” And the next one came and I was like, “Oh s***, we get to play this one, too!”  

I want to shout out Zak: giving him his flowers right now, because that dude is so incredibly talented and so open with people. He's someone that people gravitate towards just as a person. I’m very grateful to have met him and I don't feel like I'd be here doing all this without him or the 50-plus people that we've created this community with over the years. It's kind of crazy to think about. It's only been four years now but even after six months, we were pretty close in my mind. So, it's been a beautiful journey.

What the future looks like

At first, I was in the mindset that I wanted to do music for a living. When I tried it and did it every single day, I got burnt out quickly. To this day, I can still get burned out doing music because I care about it so much that the emotions get caught up and I start overthinking. The challenge for me is to find financial stability elsewhere and be able to take music as it comes and not force it. The only thing that I want to force myself to do is to take some piano lessons and get better at it so that I can do more in the live performances and up the quality of studio stuff. Other than that, I want to help people finish their projects. If that means coming in at a certain point and taking it to the finish line, I'm there for that. To be a producer who makes a ton of money every year would be great, but that's not my goal. 

There's a lot of music on hard drives that the world needs to hear. There's no pressure, which is a good and a bad thing. There are no set deadlines, we have to create that for ourselves, which is something we're all learning how to do...I want to keep exploring this middle ground between technology and music. When I started making music there was always that curiosity about how it can tie in with technology. Now that I've gotten a little bit more experience in the tech world, the goal is to keep exploring that space and seeing what we can do there. 

It’s important to never get ahead of myself and always make sure that the people that are around me are good... Just make sure that you're not losing sight of the people that you care about and never losing sight of why you started doing something. Never compromising your artistic values just to say you did this much this year or whatever. If things take time, they take time. You have to be okay with that and just take things as they come. Outside of that, family is very important. I've gotten a lot closer with my family over the years, which is a beautiful thing to be able to say.  I just want to make the sort of impact that is helpful to people and promotes openness and brings people together. I like the idea of inspiring people to start making music if they never have, I think the meditation app does that. You can mess around with it, which is what I want people to do so they can get inspired, you know? Because I think music is such a beautiful thing. It's one of my favorite things in the world.