The Limits Of Compassion

Long Covid Slow Waltz

Unanticipated Outcomes

Please visit: www.scsimonmusic.com.  The website is up and running.
You will find New Music, examples of the Creative Process Blog and information about my larger creative/philanthropic project: A Creative Community for Compassionate Change [A cc 4 cc].

This piece began with the opening violin phrase.  I felt that it conveyed a sense of ‘Americana’  The music is influenced by the mid-20th-century work of Aaron Copland and the late-20th and contemporary work of Phillip Glass; two of the greatest American composers.   It is written for a variation of the European String Quartet.  Instead of Violin 1/Violin 2/ Viola/Cello, the instrumentation is Violin/Viola/Cello/Bass/Bass.  One Bass exclusively played in Jazz style and the other alternating between bowed and pizzicato phrases.
Compared to the classical String Quartet, it is bigger and more bottom heavy; an American String Quintet.
Immigrants ARE Patriots
 
We are all Children of the Huddled Masses, the phrase is from ‘The New Colossus’ by poet Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” written to raise money for the construction of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and engraved on a bronze plaque inside the lower level.   Copland’s music conjures an ideal America with its expansive landscapes, constitutional idealism, and lofty civic goals; but a culture that has its origins almost completely in Western European culture.  Where are the Black, Hispanic, Southern and Eastern European, Asian and Native American influences?   One goal of this piece is to create a more multi-cultural Americana that incorporates and celebrates the diversity that comprises contemporary America while still retaining the form of this American version of the string quartet.   The music is intended to have a Patriotic sensibility.  Patriotism should not be conceded to xenophobic racists.  Patriotism needs to be reclaimed by ALL of the children of the Huddled Masses.   We are all the children of immigrants, many of their own desire for a better life, some not of their own choice.  Only if we are united in common purpose, the principles expressed in the Constitution can become reality for all of us.

Children of the Huddled Masses

Emergence from General Anesthesia After Cancer Surgery

Please visit scsimonmuisc.com for more music, examples of the Creative Process Blog, and information about my creative/philanthropic project: 
A Creative Community for Compassionate Change [A cc 4 cc].

I recently underwent surgery for an early stage renal cell carcinoma, kidney cancer.  It was an incidental finding on a CT scan.  I am very fortunate that it was discovered at an early stage.

While all of my musical compositions derive, in part, from my personal experience; I have not previously used any of my life’s experience as the direct theme and organizing structure for a composition.  

I began this composition 5 days after undergoing general anesthesia and surgery.  

I have performed thousands of surgical procedures on patients under general anesthesia.  This was my first experience as the patient.

This piece is conceptually structured by the dynamics of unfamiliar/familiar, anxiety/tranquility, and disquiet/composure.

The piece begins in A with a simple I - IV - vi - V progression.  The initial atmosphere is influenced by the music of Arvo Pårt and Samuel Barber.

The single melodic line for the Cello, doubled by a Jazz Bass is then joined by a second melodic line for the Violin.  This is followed by a more rhythmically complex line for the Jazz Bass.

A section follows where the Violin and Cello both echo the Bass’ line with far greater melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic complexity.  Several further variations follow.  The Cello then recapitulates the initial melodic line with the support from the Bass and Violin.

Experiencing general anesthesia is an oxymoron.  There is no experience.  It is not ‘going to sleep’.

Sleep is within the realm of the experiential.  You can have a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ night’s sleep.  You dream.  There is substantial brain activity.

Anesthesia is oblivion.  It is the antithesis of existence. 

With emergence from anesthesia, life continues but there is now a defined discontinuity to the timeline.  A piece of time has been chopped out, albeit, in this instance, in the cause of removing my tumor.

Emergence From Anesthesia - After Cancer Surgery

Progression 2018.4  I - Apertura

The second section is from the city, my urban heritage, De Mi Ciudad.

It opens with a horn section phrase based in Funk Horn Sections, but doesn’t follow 4 bar section phrasing.  The same melodic line, deconstructed and expanded harmonically repeats before the bass and cello rhythmic motif establishes itself with the horn line returning creating the overall ‘urban ‘ sense.  The cello sound is reminiscent of Abdul Wadud on Oliver Lake’s Dogon A.D., except for the lack of the 7/4 meter used on that recording.

A series of variations, melodically, harmonically and rhythmically are all derived from the initial horn line.

The deconstructed horn line returns

Progression 2018.4  II  De Mi Ciudad

Based on imaged Latin American Folk Tunes.
Influenced by Copland and Manuel Ponce

La Cosecha De Amapola Pone Comida En Nuestra Mesa

Doubled Piano, Strings and Small Horn Section.

A Living Wage Is Not A Favor

This first piece from my forthcoming release

Before The Climate Wars

scsimonmusic@gmail.com
Please visit www.scsimonmusic.com.
I am working on a concept to share the creative process. You will find a series of posts that show the development and progression of the music along with technical information including sources, techniques and links to influences. I would be very interested to have your thoughts and reactions to this project as it is in a very early stage of development and constructive feedback will help me develop the concept further.

I am a surgeon.  I work in a mostly poor and working class community in Arizona.  My practice is a mix of elective and urgent cases with a large amount of Laparoscopic and, more recently, Robotic procedures.

Many days and some nights I make lives better and some days I save a life.  There have been a few dark days when I’ve contributed to the universe’s entropy rather than added to it’s light.

After nearly 25 years in practice I still feel privileged to care for others and continue to love the performance of a surgery.

I am a musician.  I have been playing music since I was 10 years old.  I have played rock, dance music, European classical music and Jazz.  I studied music at Bennington College with Bill Dixon, Milford Graves, Nadi Qamar.  (If you don’t know them, Google them.)

A few years ago, I decided to learn how to create and produce computer based electronic music.

I have experienced more technological change during my career in surgery than in all of the rest of surgical history.  The technologies available to me as a musician have also evolved far beyond what I could have imagined as a student and young musician.

I am a child of the 60’s and 70’s and remember a time when popular music often reflected, connected to; responded to, and influenced the social and political challenges of the time.  My current musical interest is electronic protest music….Propaganda for a better world. 