Spotted: Rick Hamstra – First Year

Spotted: Rick Hamstra – First Year

Today I’m presenting you with the track First Year by the dutch composer and piano player Rick Hamstra. Rick lives in Amsterdam and has played the piano since he was about four years old.

I remember playing on a “kids keyboard” we had in our home and was mesmerized by the amount of melodies you could play. Soon after, I started keyboard lessons after my parents bought me a real keyboard.

He recently found the interest in playing the piano again and started to compose once again after some time off.

The track First Year was released as a single on the 27th of September, 2024.

Tell us something about your track First Year!
The song “First Year” is a song to honor and celebrate the first birthday of the child of two important people in my life. What’s funny, is that the inspiration for this song is the very first chord of the song ‘il porco rosso’ from Joe Hisaishi, a composer, which means ‘red pig’. The child I was talking about, has one favorite doll: a red pig. I only noticed the coincidence after I put out the song. So I guess it is faith. 

I just liked the chord, forgot to even practice the song ‘il porco rosso’ and only focused on making a melody from the chord. After 15 minutes, I created a sweet melody to represent the lovely time of seeing a child playing and developing, and recorded it.

Thank you for sharing with us Rick!