Neil Muir, Michael Luke, Daniel Baamonde: The Sons of Pitches
From left to right: Michael Luke, Daniel Baamonde, and Neil Muir
Neil Muir, The Structural Engineer & The Composer
Hey everyone! My name is Neil and I am a musical arranger/engineer in the NYC area. I pretty much was born loving music – if you were my neighbor when I was a kid, hearing two boys beautifully screaming (in harmony) next door would be part of your daily routine. Thankfully, I’ve quieted down a bit, but my love of music has only grown stronger.
When it comes to music, I’m a tinkerer. I’ve “messed around” with the piano, saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, and trombone, while also dabbling in operatic, gospel, Broadway, and pop acapella voice styles. If you listen to me sing at any point, you’ll quickly realize that I am trying to figure out all the vocal parts of a recording – and occasionally adding a part that I think should have been in there.
I love the freedom that I have to mess around with sounds, voices, instruments, and mediums, to fully communicate the meaning of a song while also highlighting the amazing talents of the people around me. I hope you enjoy our rendition of Hallelujah as much as I enjoyed arranging and singing it.
Michael Luke, The Medical Student & The Voice
Hey! My name’s Michael Luke. I started out as an engineer, planning to work in sustainable design, eventually moved to work in IT in the finance world, but now I have finally found my place as a medical student. I have been a little all over the place but music and rhythm have always been constants in my life. To be honest, I consider myself a dancer at heart but I have been singing since grade school so that must count for something. Nowadays, I work as a cantor for masses and weddings but in my free time I play around on the acoustic guitar and scour the Internet for musical covers. One day, I hope to intertwine my musical interests with my medical practice.
Daniel Baamonde, The Electrical Engineer & The Pianist turned Singer
My name is Dan, I am 24 years old, and music has always been a huge passion of mine. I started taking piano lessons at 8 years old and continued for 10 years until I went to college. In high school, I played piano for our school’s jazz ensemble and first chair trumpet for the concert band. Playing music was always a de-stresser and an escape from boredom. However, I was also really shy and terrified at the idea of singing. But when I went to college, I decided that I would try and break my shell a bit and joined an acapella group that some of my friends were starting up. From then on, singing is something that I do constantly, whether quietly to myself when I walk in public, or loud and silly to annoy my significant other. To me, singing will always be important because it helped me so much with my transformation out of pretty debilitating shyness that always plagued me as a kid.
As for balancing music with my daily work as an electrical engineer, I have no issues. I view hobbies as an essential part of my personality and, if anything, it is my job that I try to balance properly with them. Having time to myself to enjoy the things which I love makes my work worthwhile.