Benjamin Hines (1989- )
This is a temporary page written by me, Ben's piano teacher, Jeff Wade. It will have to suffice until I can get a little auto-biographical blurb from Ben himself. Now, Ben and I were just kind of mosying (is that a word?) along with his piano lessons, our progress nothing to write home about but not too terribly below average either. His mother and I would have occaisional discussions about how to encourage Benjamin, and we would try all kinds of things which never amounted to much. So we just kept at it. Then one day, out of the blue, he says to me "I want to learn Fur Elise." Just like that. Now, this particular piece was WAY above his level at the time, but he insisted on doing it "because his brother used to play it." I was ready to try anything at this point so I let him start it. That was in early 2000, if I am not mistaken, and Fur Elise has long since been mastered. I don't know what happened, but Benjamin Hines "joined the practice club." He's been cooking ever since, adding Chopin, Bach Mozart and much more to his reperatoire (Chopin is his favorite). He still comes in with pieces WAY above his head, but now I just let him tackle them. An amazing piece of work, this Benjamin Hines. My favorite piece of his is "School's Out." CHECK IT OUT!