Experience the Buzz, Host Steve Buzzard speaks with John Hamilton
SUMMARYEntrepreneur and Sacramento resident Steve Buzzard connects with Department of Sound’s Executive Director & Co-founder, John Hamilton for an interview on Experience The Buzz.
During their discussion (that’s broken up into four segments), listeners will learn more about:
How John started DJing and some of the strategies he used to build his career
How John made his way to the big stage with DJing and producing music
The story of Department of Sound and why the non-profit organization was launched
How the Covid-19 Pandemic gave the Department of Sound team a new perspective to reach more students than they expected
John Hamilton, Founder of Department of Sound, speaks on Experience the Buzz with Host Steve Buzzard about his journey as a young DJ and his entrepreneurial journey through music production. In the latter half of their discussion, John delves into his musical journey and the city that sparked his passion for music. In founding the Department of Sound as a means of granting equal access to all students' music and podcast production opportunities, he aims to direct students and educators towards a path of new music discoveries to foster community-building and positive mental health and educational benefits.
In this podcast, you will see a glimpse of John’s life starting off on the West coast in Sacramento, before shifting to the East coast to attend New York University to study Music Technology. From the young age of 16, he found his passion for DJing in Sacramento where he often played for venues such as high school dances, graduation parties, and sweet-sixteen parties. Once he made the move to New York, his music passion only grew, particularly with all the musical exposure the city has to offer. His DJ career led him to open for Steve Aoki, and music gigs in New York through his determination, originality, and perseverance. With his increasing successes in his DJ career, he realized that he wanted to expand his career to produce his own music which granted him the freedom to apply his musical knowledge and hands-on experience in his own lines of work.
In his later DJ career, Hamilton returned to Sacramento in 2015 to be the official DJ for the Sacramento Kings. With his return to Sacramento, he and his friend Tyler Garnett felt a sort of renewed energy in the city; particularly through reinvestments of the city infrastructures. This revitalization evoked a question in his head about what the future of the music industry in Sacramento could look like. This ultimately directed him to create the Department of Sound to promote equitable music education opportunities for students in the area. The name, Department of Sound, was thus inspired to symbolize music as a utility rather than a luxury.
John continues to unpack the emergence of the Department of Sound alongside COVID impacts. With the intention of starting in-person workshops in March 2020, his internal team had to pivot completely to a new plan. He states, “We had a responsibility and duty as being a program that could still exist within COVID….So we basically realized, number one, we need to create an online program that anybody can hop on and do a free course. We need to take our work and put it online so anyone that has the time can do that.” Through this revised online curriculum, partnered alongside the digital tool Soundtrap, the curriculum has reached students locally, regionally, and internationally. With an intent to positively impact individuals in the larger array of the music education sector, the Department of Sound is going even a step further by inter webbing their curriculum into schools to empower music teachers to use these technology-enabled educational tools to maximize student’s exposure to new and possible musical endeavors.
SOURCE: “No. 10 -- JOHN HAMILTON | DJ + Producer + Dept. of Sound,” Experience The Buzz