Rising Stars: Meet Aaron Barbosa

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Barbosa.

Hi Aaron, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Growing up as a Pastor’s Kid was kind of crazy. It was a new church so there was no cool church band like other places I had attended. We used to actually sing Karaoke with like cassette tapes. Needless to say, it was so embarrassing that I wouldn’t even invite friends to church. Well, eventually my dad prayed for me to learn to play and then got me lessons. My teachers 1 by 1 ended up quitting on me. One of them told my dad to enroll me in baseball because I’d never really learned because I had “no interest” ( he wasn’t lying). Well, my dad would put me up there to play anyways and I completely SUCKED, lol. Maybe purely out of a fear of ruining our church music, I would practice and practice even without a teacher. I had two instrumental men in my life at that time…Chris Acosta Sr & Aurelio Lopez. Aurelio lent me a keyboard to practice on and Chris would come over and bring me cassettes of keyboardists to learn from. So I would learn songs BY EAR for hours and hours weekly (pre – YouTube tutorials)!

Well, after some time I actually got pretty good and I am grateful for that and all the people that invested into seeing me grow. By the time I had reached 16, I had played my first record at a studio because of my uncle Saul Barbosa. Then once I learned a little, my uncle Pete & Isaac gave me a chance in their band Nu Vision and in their church choirs as well. I guess in our world, I was really succeeding (at least way past my original expectations). Well, eventually I was hired on to play and direct music at other church’s. At 1 point, I was playing five churches on a Sunday and one particular day, I was so exhausted from all of the work and mostly the preparation it takes to keep those types of programs going at that level. My dad once again enters with the wisdom. He said, “why don’t you duplicate yourself”. It honestly was a puzzling piece of advice at first. For one, DUPLICATE?? What does that mean, but when he explained that he thought I should teach, that completely blew my mind. I had NOT finished college, I didn’t have a location to teach classes, ZERO BUSINESS EXPERIENCE.

Well, long story short, I did what he said. I opened up specifically as a music school for church bands because I just hated all of the personal trauma of having to birth a music department with little guidance. It BLEW MY MIND! On night one, 85 students enrolled. I had NO IDEA that so many churches also hated their sucky music departments and needed help. Well, fast forward to 2020 pre-pandemic and the school has been going strong for 17 years. Well, as you know we were forced to shut down classes and lost absolutely all of our income. I was able to get on unemployment and get a pair of small grants to keep a few staff paid for just a little while. We were forced to try something we had never done – Go 100% Online. To our amazement, there were many people who wanted to learn Piano Online from the convenience of their home! We even cut our prices to the cost of four lessons for the price of one. Well, needless to say that we have been blessed to now have a school body of over 500 current students. We still have a long way to go, and our path hasn’t been straight, but we have so many students that are learning, loving their new community of friends and just feeling better about themselves because of the purpose that feels playing music & helping others.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, it has not been a smooth road. As a kid, we had a real lack of resources to learn how to play (especially with specialized styles)

As an adult, covid forced us to shut down our entire school. We had to figure out how to deliver classes online. It wasn’t just the difficulty of the technical with equipment etc. but also challenge of the back end (financial, enrollments, records, etc. online).

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
So I teach Piano & Artist Development to mostly young students (high school through college age).

I specialize on the piano side in Gospel, Latin Styles, Pop & Modern Worship Music.

In Artist Development, our program focuses on taking students from Songwriting all the way to self-publishing on Spotify, iTunes & YouTube.

I think what sets us apart is our specialized curriculum. We know every aspect of what we teach because we’ve been through it THE HARD WAY & want to enable our students to learn from our mistakes. So there’s a lot of mentorships which includes plenty of patience and plenty of love (positive reinforcement).

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
What a great question. If I could go back and talk to young me, I’d say: “You’re going to make it, everything is going to work out.”

I’d say, stick with what you’re good at & don’t waste your time trying to explain yourself to people that have never walked in your shoes. Be thankful and reward those who have been there for you. Get yourself the kind of friends that celebrate your accomplishments and are present in your worst moments. Finally, staff your weaknesses. Know what you don’t know + don’t undervalue yourself all at the same time.

Pricing:

• $29 monthly Online Piano Sub
• $99 monthly Artist Development Coaching

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: MinstrelsTV.com
• Instagram: @GaaronBarbosa
• Facebook: AaronBarbosa
• Youtube: Minstrel

Image Credits:
Frank Hernandez Moises Ramírez Jarius Almaraz Micah Barbosa Phillip Delgado