About TJ

T.J. Hill is a composer, producer, and multi instrumentalist.  He was raised in the mountains near Yosemite, California where he began his musical training.  Piano lessons were a requirement in the Hill household, which did not make T.J. happy.  Upon discovering rock music in middle school, he decided that music wasn't so bad after all.  He was drawn to guitar and drums like a mosquito to a bug zapper.  Throughout middle school and high school, T.J. played in church, school bands and various rock/punk bands (such as "The Crifflers" and "Frequency 72").  After high school, he played drums professionally with "Down and Away" and produced the band's four albums.  

T.J.'s musical training is extensive and stylistically varied.  He is a jazz trained guitarist and spent four years studying under renown guitarist/educator Dave Schroeder in the San Francisco bay area.  As a drummer, he was trained by Bill Breaux in the "pocket" tradition, where feel and groove are of utmost importance.  After years of lessons as a child, and some training in college, piano became an important instrument which T.J. uses to flesh out musical ideas.  Other instruments he plays include the double bass, electric bass, mandolin, theremin, musical saw, and ukulele.  He studied (and continues to study) music theory and composition with Dr. Joseph Waters and Prof. Brent Dutton at San Diego State University.

As a media composer, T.J. has worked in a variety of industries and genres.  He has scored three full length films for Hume Lake Pictures, as well as many shorts for the same production company.  The Hume Lake organization has also hired T.J. to write the music and songs for a number of theatrical productions.  The Showit company called on him to write instrumental tracks to be bundled with their "Showit Web" software.  Now in it's second version, Showit Web is used by many thousands of photographers all over the world.

Currently, T.J. lives in San Diego California where he is finishing up his "Electro-Acoustic  Music Composition" degree at San Diego State University.  When not in his studio making music, he enjoys mountain biking and valiantly attempting to cook edible food.