Benjamin Cohen

I am a musician from New York City offering lessons in jazz saxophone and acousitc rock guitar. I attended Manhattan School of Music for three years and graduated from The New School for Jazz and Improvised Music in 2022 with a bachelor's degree in jazz baritone saxophone. I've had many great saxophone teachers who gave me the tools to develop my own voice on the instrument. I've also had the honor of playing alongside Wynton Marsalis, Ted Nash and Rodney Whitaker over my seventeen years of playing. 

I've been playing guitar and writing songs for as long as I've played saxophone, and have performed my own music at venues around New York under the name Benjamin Formerly. In my guitar lessons I cover chord techniques for playing acoustic folk, indie and rock music. 

My approach is to build confidence from the start and encourage individuality. Keeping the student's goal in mind is important for motivation.

Listening to jazz is fun and is a major part of learning to improvise. Our biggest resource is recorded music. 

For saxophone students, the "boring" parts (scales, longtones) are unavoidable and will always be a part of playing. My approach is to tackle material at a comfortable pace for each student and to establish a healthy practice routine between lessons.

In a lesson or solo practice session, difficult material can be frustrating, so it's important to move on once a good effort is made. Progress happens slowly over time and only so much improvement can happen in one sitting--often it will seem like none at all, and that's okay! You will get better.