The Music of Dean Hamill

Biographie

My formal music studies started at the age of nine with piano.  About the time the Beatles became famous, I started learning guitar and was hooked.  Eventually, I majored in classical guitar.  I attended three years of Christopher Parkening master classes and graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from University of Southern California (USC).  While there I also studied composition and orchestration.

Shortly after graduating, I was hired to teach guitar classes at several community colleges and USC.  I continued my classical guitar studies taking private lessons from Pepe Romero.  My mentor at USC, Duke Miller, suggested that I write new course materials for the classes.  The result was Adult Group Guitar One and Adult Group Guitar Two.  Eventually, I adapted these into one of the first video guitar instructional courses commercially available to the public, Guitar Now! volumes one and two, which enjoyed combined sales of over 100,000 copies.

I earned my masters degree in music from California State University at Long Beach.  There, I studied choral arranging with nationally renowned Professor Frank Pooler.  This experience brought to me a whole new excitement and I started devoting more energy to composition and arranging.  During this period I composed and arranged music for the nationally recognized Grand Land Singers.

I love setting scripture based texts to music that might help lift and encourage people to grow in faith and testimony of our Savior.  My particular choice of Christianity, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gives me the sure foundation I need for faith based composing.


     
  Dean Hamill