Michael Hill - article in Los Gatos News

I found a pretty good (old) article on my roommate in the Los Gatos News (which, by the way, is sponsored by topix).  The full article is given below:

Hill steeped in the language of music

By Paul Freeman / Entertainment Writer

Menlo Park musician Michael Ian Hill is working on a new CD, a follow up to this year's "Learning English Through Music."

Working for NASA isn't the common steppingstone to a pop music career. But Menlo Park resident Michael Ian Hill is an uncommon musician. His infectious brand of power pop is out of this world.
Hill moved to the Peninsula in 1999, earning a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He subsequently landed a job at NASA's Human Factors Lab. His work involved video and audio perception, 3-D graphics and virtual reality for use in testing and training astronauts.
The son of two gifted musicians, indie film composer John Hill and singer Susan Christie, he wrote songs in his off-hours. By the age of 10, growing up in New Jersey, Hill was experimenting with guitar, piano and synthesizers.
"I've always been interested in music," he says. "Often it was more of a when-I-had-the-time sort of activity. Only recently did I decide that it was something I wanted to take to the next level and really get serious about."
Turning 30 spurred Hill to shift from science to the arts. "I was always torn between these two directions. I've always been a computer geek, as well as a music geek.
"Gradually, I realized that music was more exciting to me and I had to take notice. You can't keep all your options open at once. You've got to commit to something and do it. I don't know what will happen. I only know I have to try. I didn't want to look back, regretting never having given this a shot."
Hill knew this endeavor would require a great deal of effort. "My dad works very hard at what he does. Any type of music career is a tremendous amount of work. "
Earlier this year, his first CD was released in Japan. The title translates as "Learning English Through Music." The album was created in conjunction with a Silicon Valley company called English Vitamin, which provides language and cultural lessons for the Japanese market.
Hill believes music can be an effective teaching tool. "If you have the extra element of remembering a melody, it's a good mnemonic device for keeping something in mind," he said. "My goal was to have a record that would not only provide educational value, but would also stand alone as good music."
He achieved that goal, fashioning such fun, fabulous songs as "To Love a Girl," "In the Summertime" and "Michelle." It's irresistible music, in the Beatles, Jellyfish, Apples In Stereo vein.
The songs also teach prepositions. One number sprinkles the various uses of the word "at" throughout the composition. "It's hard to have music that doesn't reveal too overtly that it has a purpose," he said.
Hill believes this could be a teaching template used in many situations and many countries. "Music is a way of connecting cultures. It links people together."
Hill is working on a new CD - and he won't have to include words like "in" or "on" a certain number of times.
"In a way, it was kind of nice to have that structure, that restriction," he said. "When you have the entire universe of options open to you, it can be staggering sometimes. You don't know where to start. If you just concentrate on making something that's good, it frees you up."
The work is off to an intriguing start, inspired by months he spent in Japan.
"That time was very enriching creatively. When I first got there, I felt pretty lonely," he said. "You can't talk to that many people, if you can't speak the language. But it was surprising how quickly that loneliness went away, replaced with a feeling of being mentally stimulated. I was continuously learning about the language, the culture, the environment."
He also studied the modern music of Japan.
"One theme is a connection with nature. For example, every year in the spring while the sakura (cherry blossoms) are blooming, a number of popular songs come out which talk about the flowers. This is a type of thing that I haven't seen much in western pop music," he said.
The imaginative story Hill tells with this album begins with Japanese office workers leading normal lives, then veers into a dream world containing such sci-fi elements as fallen cosmonauts and lost satellites.
The new songs will include Japanese lyrics, as well as English.
"The Japanese language has different sonic qualities," he said. "It's more rhythmic than English, because there are a lot of consonants. It's a staccato type of thing. So I'll use it where those sounds are appropriate."
Hill, who is a member of the Bay Area band Great Teacher, named for a Japanese cartoon, looks forward to performing his new solo songs.
"When you're writing music, you're completely in your own world," he said. "You don't know how it's going to be received. When someone actually hears it and likes it, it becomes more real for you."
He knows that can take time. In 1970, his mother recorded "Paint a Lady," a brilliant folk-psych album, that wasn't released until 2006.
"If you believe, in your heart of hearts, in the music you're working on, then it probably will eventually reach other people. And for me, that's the whole point of all of this."
Learn more about Hill and music by visiting www.michaelianhill.com.