Hidden Housatonic: Joao Paltanin
For Joao Paltanin, moving to America at age eight was a big culture shock. One of the biggest differences for the Brazil native came in the form of American music, which felt way more diverse and upbeat than the folk music he grew up listening to. After discovering house DJ Afrojack at age 11, he fell in love with the world of electronic music, inspiring him to create his own music under the name Endsetter.
Now 19, Paltanin attends Housatonic as a first-semester engineering student. Despite getting off to a rough start, Joao has been loving the experience. “It was really hard to get used to the workload, but after I got used to it everything went really smooth…I realized that college isn’t about what you do here, it’s about what you do at home, and it was hard getting used to that,” he said.
Carnival music festival in New York.
Putting in work at home is no new concept for Joao; it was a practice he started developing at 13 after he downloaded a digital music program and became obsessed with the creation of electronic music. Learning from YouTube videos and personal experimentation, he began to hone his skills, sacrificing traditional fun for his own piece of euphoria.
“I’d go on vacation and that was heaven for me; I could stay inside and work on music while everybody went to the beach,” he said.
Over time Paltanin’s style changed from house to the heavy styles of dubstep and trap, encompassing the internal fondness that he’s always had for dark and energetic music. He even described the experience of discovering dubstep like meeting your best friend. Through six years of hardwork and dedication, Paltanin has crafted his sound to a level that is actually surprising himself. “It’s really cool how I can compare a song from when I was 13 to one I’ve made now. It doesn’t sound like something I’ve made, it sounds like something you would listen to on the radio. It’s nice to have that feeling, listening to something you made but it sounds so cool it seems like somebody else made it,” he said.
Still, the producer admits he has a lot more to learn, but he’s allowing himself to learn at his own pace. He admits finding time for music and school has been a struggle lately, but he knows that if he keeps on track with simply creating he will get where he needs to be.
“Just having the thought in your mind that you want to do better than you did yesterday is being successful…my friend told me it’s all about how much work you put in. You’ve got to do something every day. If that’s your dream, you have to work on it every day,” he added.
Joao’s music can be found at soundcloud.com/endsetter