Lynn pianist releasing 2nd solo album

LYNN – “Travels” is an appropriate title for Doug Hammer?s new album of solo, original piano tracks.The 44-year-old Lynn musician, composer and producer showed an interest in music at age 3, and then continued down different musical avenues, arriving most recently at his own home studio and recording career.Hammer?s father played piano in the house and both of his parents put on country and Broadway tunes while Hammer was growing up in Pasadena, Calif. and then Brookfield, Ill.Hammer said he took a particular liking to the Merle Haggard song “Green Green Grass of Home.”Hammer latched onto the contemporary pop music he was taught after beginning piano lessons at age 6, but his parents also enrolled him in classical music lessons.Hammer turned away from classical music while in high school because he had trouble getting high marks in classical piano competitions that put a focus on sticking straight to the music.?It was all about technical proficiency,” he said. “And so I would get frustrated with that, and then I stopped.”But Hammer didn?t know how pop songs were portrayed in sheet music, like “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas.?And so I would start adding my own notes to make it more like the recording,” he said. “I had a hard time just being constrained and confined to the notes on the page. I always wanted to mess around to the notes.”Picking up brass and percussion instruments in the high school band, Hammer enrolled in Berklee College of Music to study songwriting, commercial arranging and jazz, graduating in 1989.Hammer made money while in school by playing gigs all around Boston in bars, restaurants and hotels, and at Faneuil Hall. He said he would play on beat-up pianos sometimes for 24 hours in a two-day period.?I learned a lot of standards and it rounded my musical abilities out even more, going through all these songs,” he said.Hammer headed to London after leaving Berklee for a seven-month student exchange program, spending his time playing gigs in a variety of places. Shortly after returning from London, Hammer moved back to Boston and then started his own studio out of his two-bedroom apartment in 1992.?Sometimes, I would have a whole group of singers in. They would record in the kitchen. I would have to wheel the kitchen table out and turn the fridge off to record them,” he said.Desiring a larger studio space, Hammer moved with his wife, Emmanuelle, whom he met while in London, to a house in Lynn in the fall of 1999.It took seven months to build a studio from scratch, he said, and the space includes a grand piano, three recording rooms, a computer and a mixing board. Hammer named his new company Dreamworld Productions and Design, and his wife lends her graphics talents to the artists he works with.Because Hammer was focused on recording and producing other artists in different musical styles, he stopped hunting for his next gig.?I?m not saying it was a drag, but I saw some pianists who were really burning out, and I was like, I don?t want to be them,” he said.Hammer eventually started to release his own music, and his first solo piano album, ?Solace? came out in 2007.?It?s something I always wanted to do, but I was caught up in getting the studio up and running. So I had a whole bunch of songs I had worked on over the years,” he said.After a few other solo releases, Hammer introduced his second original piano album, “Travels,” a 39-track double album, at the end of October.?A lot of it is based on traveling through time, and looking back, looking where I?m at now and looking towards the future,” he said.Hammer said he wants to release additional solo piano CDs, explore other instruments and genres of music, and score films.?The piano is my core. It?s what I started with and it?s always been my main thing. And so I think that?s one reason that I?ve really focused on the piano music,” he said. “But there?s quite a lot of different things I want to do.”Sarah Mupo can be reached at [email protected].