How To Make The Violin Cool?
The fascinating Story of A Female
Music Entrepreneur
On October 21st, 2021, Grammy Award-Winning violinist, a music pioneer, and a public speaker, Miri Ben-Ari, took the stage at the Cape May high school auditorium to share a TED talk: How to make the violin cool?
Ben-Ari redefined “violin” by thinking outside the box and transformed this classical instrument to be featured in commercial music. She collaborated with many artists such as Kanye West, Jay Z, Wyclef Jean, Alicia Keys, Wynton Marsalis, John Legend, Aventura, Fetty Wap, and Armin Van Buuren among others, and helped sell millions of records. Ben-Ari is the first violinist to win a Grammy in the Hip-Hop category and the first violinist to feature the violin in Hip Hop, Latin, Trance EDM, and Afrobeats music.
Her successful music career did not happen overnight, Ben-Ari kept pushing the limits and was not afraid of failing over and over again. Her TED talk tells her story with some very useful professional tips and insights based on her challenging experience, a journey that impacted a generation of musicians who followed her footsteps.
Ben-Ari is not new to public speaking but due to COVID19, her scheduled TED talk venue has changed.
“This was not planned as a TED talk for teens, but the fact that I had the opportunity to deliver it to an audience of high school students made it very special,” says Miri Ben-Ari.
“My violin story starts on a school bus, with a bunch of eighth-graders on a field trip. There was a boy that liked me but I did not like him, so you know what he did? He bullied me! How did he bully me? He gathered all of his boys to surround me on the bus, and they all made fun of my violin playing. Have you ever been bullied before? Can you relate?! It’s painful. In my mind, I can still see their eyes, I can hear their laughter. I was sitting next to my bestie, we were holding hands and crying all the way home. I had to switch schools after this incident, but I also made a decision: I would never allow anyone to make fun out of my violin playing again. I am going to turn my violin into the coolest thing ever. I had no idea how to go about it but I was determined.”
So what does it take to make the violin cool?
Being a TED talk speaker, Ben-Ari made sure to influence the audience by sharing professional advice and method
Six traits you must-have when following your dream to create something new
Knowledge: you must become an authority in your field, you have to be skillful.
Talent: knowledge is not enough, for an instant, when it comes to music you need to have a “charisma”, where you are capable of transforming your emotions into an audience-this takes talent!
Imagination: every idea starts with a “bubble over your head”, you must be creative, innovative, see your idea first, and then create it.
Drive: some call it motivation or passion, it is the fire that keeps us going. Ben-Ari mentioned that sometimes it’s important to add a litle bit of “chutzpah” (to dare in Hebrew), having the guts to do things, even if it means breaking some rules. (within reason of course)
Elephant skin: don’t care what people say, you can never please everyone anyway.
Patience: evolution does not happen overnight and sometimes it takes longer than other times.
So how do you go about your dream?
“You follow those 6 traits and become the best at it. Have you ever tried doing something that didn’t exist before? This is not an easy task, it takes years of practicing, figuring out what to do, how to do it, and then you gotta hustle and convince everyone that it’s going to work.”
“you have to be prepared to fail, over and over again.”
*I was a classical musician, I love classical music, it is the foundation for everything, it is my foundation, but I also knew that in order to come up with my own original style I would have to learn how to improvise music, and so I came up with a new plan: move to NYC to study Jazz music, the art of improvisation. My dad told me that I would never have a career unless it’s classical music, my heart was broken, but I had the “drive” so I kept ongoing. I moved to NY with no money, family, or friends, I hardly spoke English. I was the only violinist in my jazz school, but I had an “elephant skin” and kept ongoing. I played in every possible club, jammed with every band, and got on stages even when I was not invited. As a student, I had to work extra hours to pay my rent, and when my music teachers failed me in music because I could not attend all of my classes, I had to drop out of school. Have you ever lost a dream before? I was devastated but I had that passion, so I kept ongoing. The music industry? did not understand my new violin concept of taking a classical violin and fusing it with a different musical genre, what else they didn’t understand? The concept of having a violinist in the front of the stage, everyone was used to seeing a violinist, behind the singer, accompanying, almost like a decoration. I sent hundreds of demos but no one wanted to give me a chance. But I had patience and so I kept ongoing. I cannot tell you how many times I heard the word “no”, but I didn’t put any meaning into it, it was just an opportunity to stop, rethink, maybe try a new approach and come back at it.
“Because in my mind I was already where I was supposed to be”
Ben-Ari’s drive and persistence paid off, her successful career that started on the Apollo Theatre stage’s in New York continued with an album deal with Universal Records and the release of “The Hip Hop Violinist”, the first album establishing and introducing “Hip Hop Violin” as a musical genre. Ben-Ari has become the first violinist to be featured on many Hip Hop and R&B commercial songs, and the first violinist to be featured in EDM music (DJ Armin Van Buuren), in Latin music (Aventura), and in Afrobeats (Diamond Platnumz).
It turned out Ben-Ari is not only a gifted musician but also a great public speaker, a TED talk motivational speaker who knows how to inspire her audience. She concludes her TED talk by encouraging her audience “Think the impossible, dare to be creative, dare to think outside of the box, the violin box.”
