About David Hamill
David Hamill is a largely self-taught musician and composer. Although he's not from a musical family, as a child he taught himself to read and write music and to play a number of instruments, starting with the recorder and the ukulele, and he composed his first tune at the age of ten. After reading a series of library books with titles like The Young Mozart and The Young Mendelssohn, he asked his parents if they would get him an orchestra for his birthday!
Later, while still at school, he learned the double bass classically and performed in youth orchestras. He also wrote rock songs and recorded them himself using tape-to-tape multitracking. He designed and built a variety of electronic instruments and items of recording equipment. One of these was a reverberation unit featuring a spring made from fencing wire, driven by a loudspeaker with no cone via an old valve amplifier, and using a headphone as a pickup! One of his music teachers, David Huke, combined classical counter-tenor singing with performing as a jazz pianist. He helped David to join the Musicians' Union and start depping as a bass player in dance bands on Saturday nights.
The education system forced David to make a choice between art and science subjects, and he opted for science. This eventually led to a successful career in electronic engineering (see David's technical website), but he kept music as a hobby, specialising in the double bass and later the bass guitar. Over the years he has played in a number of amateur jazz bands and rock/pop groups.
David has never been able to understand why classical, jazz and rock should be different worlds, and his music tries to link all three genres.
Note: There is another UK composer called David Hamill, who works primarily in film and television! The website you are now viewing is about David C. Hamill, who is based in Surrey.
To contact David, please email info@hamill.co.uk. (This address is already well known to spammers, so please use the subject "Music website" to make sure your message gets through!)