Pied piper
Rogers is from Trucksville, Penn., a small town in the Scranton area. "Small" is an understatement since his coal-mining town does not even have its own post office. As a result, he must write the name of the neighboring town on his mail. Nonetheless, Trucksville is not in the middle of nowhere. There is a small city nearby, and Rogers insisted that the place in which he grew up in "could have been worse."
He first became interested in music in the fifth grade when his parents urged him to join the school band. Although he wanted to take up the clarinet, the band needed a trumpet player, so he began playing the trumpet, which he now plays for the Blue Nomads. He found playing with the Nomads, a jazz ensemble, a great experience that provided an opportunity to do a different sort of music from that which he did for his major. The members of the Nomads would also bring in original tunes all the time.
Nomad Austin Leach '08 found his colleague an unforgettable part of the ensemble. "He's certainly a character, in an awesome way," Leach proclaimed. "As a musician, he has a haunting tone, and a smooth way of playing. His songs, in a way, reflect his personality: a little dark and unpredictable. I mean that in the best of ways, Ben is a real sweet guy."
Because these terrifically talented men were together for two years, the group worked well and "somehow everything [clicked]." But Rogers' musical extracurricular activities at Amherst extend to singing in the concert choir and the DQ. He joked that Amherst's reputation as the "singing college" ultimately got to him.
Although he does not have a favorite composer, he, as a trumpet player, greatly admires Miles Davis. In high school, he caught what he calls the "higher-faster-louder syndrome." After listening to more of Davis' music, Rogers realized that he did not have to play lengthy pieces with continually high, fast and loud notes while pausing for few breath breaks in order to impress people. Instead, he could choose to stay with "one good note in a comfortable range" and even insert some rests. "It's not laziness, and it's not a cop-out. It's good taste. What I needed to do as a player was stop trying to impress people technically, and instead just focus on my tone," he explained.
Rogers certainly must have honed his trumpet-playing skills because Spratlan cites him as "the big wit among jazz trumpeters at the College."
Cogito, ergo sum
One of the important reasons as to why Rogers decided to attend Amherst College was because of the school's open curriculum, and the curricular freedom is to thank for both his majors.
It was not until the end of his first year that he realized he wanted to be a music major. He originally took music classes because his friends were doing so. Rogers then discovered that he liked the department, that this was something he enjoyed doing and that he suddenly had a creative outlet unavailable to him in high school. "You come here, and sure there are music classes before that, but they aren't considered on the same level in terms of being considered an academic subject," he said.
In addition, Rogers stressed the line of communication that the music major presented to him. "If I wanted to write a song or whatever, it's usually something that's for my audience and not just for me," Rogers elaborated. "Whereas if you're writing a paper, you have this attitude that no one cares. Then again, I double majored in philosophy."
Rogers decided to major in philosophy at the end of his sophomore year because he liked his fellow and prospective majors. But more importantly, he was attracted to the higher level courses in which the professors focus on what is the best view or the strongest argument, that do not have to be necessarily their own viewpoints.
He sees philosophy as a subject that is detached from what people actually do in the world. In class, students discuss such topics as the separation of mind and body. "It's a completely different game," said Rogers; this self-contained aspect of philosophy attracted him to the discipline.
If he had known what he wanted to major in from the beginning, Rogers reflected, he would have been to start fulfilling major requirements right away. On the other hand, not being sure of his major allowed him to explore different departments and this exploration, after all, is what led him to his music and philosophy majors.
As for his philosophy thesis, Rogers briefly describes the paper as dealing with "belief and the standards of evidence that are used to justify it."
Full-time spam artist
Rogers' music thesis was a culmination of the various compositional, instrumental and vocal work he had done throughout his time at Amherst. He wanted to write both for singers and people who play instruments. The performance thus employed a condensed orchestra and small choir.
Again with the emphasis on communication, Rogers wanted to write a musical piece that would be accessible to his audience of college students. "I've seen too much art in general [in which] the artist says that if you don't like it, it means you don't understand it." And so, he juxtaposed what others may consider stiff, classical music with humorous, non-traditional text-namely, spam e-mails. He wanted to relate to his audience: Everyone gets spam in his or her mailbox all of the time.
His thesis consisted of four movements or four e-mails ranging from a Visa verification to an advertisement for Viagra. The spam e-mails were absolutely random; an excerpt from the "Fwd: (no subject)" chain letter clearly illustrates this absurdity: "i am seven years old with black hair and red eyes. i have no nose or ears. i am dead. If you do not send this to 15 people in the next five minutes i will appear tonight by your bed with a knife and kill you." Ominous, yet riotous, words.
Friend Dan McGeeney '08 observed originality in Rogers' darkish sense of humor. "Ben is the kind of person who is completely predictable, yet everything he does is always wildly unexpected. He is shrewdly rational, but he approaches things in a unique, thoughtful way."
According to Rogers, writing two theses "kills your life." He wrote the first movement of his piece last summer and then wrote the rest during the fall semester. He spent the most recent Interterm working on his philosophy thesis. Because he worked on two theses, there were days when he had no class. On those days, he would compose in his room, go downstairs to get food (since he lived in Valentine Hall) and then compose some more.
Speaking of Valentine, Rogers believes that the dormitory is underrated because the room sizes are decent and the location is incredibly convenient. Luckily for him, this was the first year in which the dormitory was open to upperclassmen.
The convenience Valentine offered was of great help to Rogers while he was working on his theses. "During Interterm, I had just changed my philosophy thesis topic and I had to get something written on my new topic in just over two weeks," he recalled. "Being able to run downstairs, grab some food, and then get back to work while everyone else froze outside on their way over was pretty good." During his limited spare time, he hung out with his friends, but most of his time was devoted to his theses.
He also met often with Spratlan, who offered creative and insightful comments guiding Rogers to improve his thesis in ways that he had not before considered. "I still have no idea how he [Spratlan] does it. He can magically look at things and make them better," said Rogers.
Spratlan was a significant influence in Rogers' decision to become a music major. In turn, his advisor poetically described Rogers, in his thesis, as having "skewered the Internet, Viagra and the universe of all scams, while prying loose our sympathies for the losers and the lost of this world."
Rogers was ultimately happy with his senior projects. He believes that he wrote a piece that his audience enjoyed and that successfully communicated what he desired. He said that he could not have asked for more.
All set for life
For those who wail that there is no dating scene at the College, look no further than Rogers and his fiancé. He is happily engaged to Virginia Hulick '06. The couple met during their first year at the College when they lived together in North College, and "that was about it." In the summer of 2004, they drove across the country together, and this summer, they will be saying their vows in matrimony.
In fact, the sounding of wedding bells for Rogers didn't come as a surprise to the Nomads. "He's kind of like the grandpa of The Blue Nomads," said Leach. "If one of us had to be sacrificed to the marriage gods, it'd be (and has turned out to be) him, because he's just so mature. I couldn't be happier for him." McGeeney agreed, "He might be one of the most self-assured people I know; he always seems very comfortable with who he is and where he stands on things."
After Amherst, Rogers is headed to the prestigious Yale Law School, but he has not yet decided on a particular field of law to study. When he graduates from law school, Rogers will have to look for his first real job. "If all goes well, I am likely to spend my first year or two after law school doing judicial clerkships," he said.
Rogers hopes that he will secure a well-paying and interesting job as he balances his time between his career and the new family he will be starting. At least one point is certain: He stressed that, unlike most Yale Law School graduates, he will not be living in New York City.
For current Amherst students, Rogers has this piece of advice: "Learn to write while you're here." He considers fine writing to be the most valuable skill that a student can get out of an Amherst education. Rogers asserts that writing spans over all fields and encompasses all majors; hence, writing is incredibly useful to everyone, even to this singing, trumpet-playing composer-philosopher.