Jerald Simon
Jerald Simon is a composer, music educator, professional speaker, life coach, author, poet, and Music Mentor/piano teacher (primarily focusing his piano teaching on music theory, improvisation, composition, and arranging). He is the Founder and President of Music Motivation®. Jerald loves music, teaching, speaking, performing, playing sports, exercising, reading, writing poetry and self-help books, and gardening. However, he is first and foremost a devoted husband to his beautiful wife Suzanne (Zanny), and a father to his three wonderful children – Summer, Preston, and Matthew.
Jerald grew up in Pleasant View, Utah. At the age of eight, he fell from a 50-foot cliff just north of Pleasant View Drive where he and his family were living at the time. Because of the fall, he says that he does not remember anything before he was eight. He attended Weber High School, and then, after serving a two-year full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brasilia, Brazil, he attended Weber State University where he met Suzanne.
Music was a big part of his life growing up. His father, Jerry F. Simon, was a profession musician. Jerald says, “Playing the piano was the 11th commandment in our home — closely followed by the 12th commandment: ‘Thou shalt not whine about playing the piano.’” He continues, “Growing up, I honestly thought all my friends practiced their instruments before going to school just like I did and was completely shocked to find out, in about the third grade, that none of my friends played any instruments at all or woke up at 5 a.m. to practice them before school.”
He created the company Music Motivation® as a resource for piano teachers, piano students, and parents of piano students. The company was set up as a record label and a publishing company and is dedicated to motivating music students of all ages with “Music that excites, entertains, and educates” ™. In 2014 he began creating his monthly “Cool Songs” to help teach music theory – the FUN way by putting FUN back into theory FUNdamentals. The three main areas of focus for Music Motivation® are Theory Therapy™, Innovative Improvisation™, and Creative Composition™.
Over the past few years, Jerald has written 21 music books from the Music Motivation® Series featuring original music that he composed for the piano “to help motivate piano students with fun and cool sounding music at various levels.” He is the author/poet of The “As If” Principle: Motivational Poetry, and the motivational/self-help manual and CD (audiobook) titled Perceptions, Parables, and Pointers. He has recorded nine albums of original music featuring piano solos, hymn arrangements, meditation music, pop, jazz, techno-pop and soundtrack/instrumental pieces, as well as a few additional singles and EPs including his single “Triumphant.”
Jerald has stated, “My purpose and mission in life are to motivate myself and others through my music and writing, to help others find their purpose and mission in life, and to teach values that encourage everyone everywhere to do and be their best.”
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Behind the Music – Jerald Simon’s “A Season to Be Strong”
On 4 September 2019, Jerald Simon released a music video of his original song called “A Season to Be Strong.” The song features his twin brother, Josh, singing the lead vocals. Jerald Simon was a 17-years-old young man when he originally wrote and composed “A Season...