Guest Rob Hamilton, Dartmouth ’96, was already a musician before entering college and knew he wanted to major in music. But he also wanted to go deeper, understanding how and why sound affects us as humans. So double-majored with cognitive science. He also found his way to the Bregman Electronic Music Studio—not widely known outside of the electronic music scene, but considered a powerhouse by students of the genre due to its development of the Synclavier the first commercially available portable digital synthesizer.

Even though Rob loved writing and playing electronic music it didn’t seem that there was much of a commercial future in that, so he turned to consulting and eventually leaped into the dot-com start-up world, where he was able to pick up coding by doing (despite being a bad computer science student in school). When the boom became a bust, he was actually happy to leave the corporate world and turned back to music.

He jumped into the world of academia to pursue electronic music but it wasn’t the easiest of roads. And in the middle, he got pulled back to the start-up world just as smart phones came on the market and the app scene was blowing up. Developing sound-based apps, he was tapping into the creativity of both his technical and musical sides, but the market-driven lifestyle just didn’t seem to fit.//In this episode, find out from Rob how interweaving interests and playing by your own rules often leads to the sweetest music…on ROADS TAKEN...with Leslie Jennings Rowley.

Bonus from Rob: "Also, thought it would be fun to mention, in the Magic Piano app by Smule, one thing I got to do as the Project Manager/Music Director was to sneak "Dear Old Dartmouth" into the app; you can still go download and play it."

About This Episode's Guest

Rob Hamilton is Associate Professor of Music and Media at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where he’s been since 2015, composing, performing, researching, and designing software for interactive soundscapes. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer-based Music Theory and Acoustics and an M.A. in Music, Science and Technology from Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) in the Department of Music, as well as a M.M. in Computer Music Composition from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com

Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley

Music: Brian Burrows

Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com

The Music Game: Rob Hamilton on interweaving interests and playing by your own rules

Roads Taken