Today we’d like to introduce you to Jerald Simon
Hi Jerald, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Jerald Simon. First and foremost, I am a husband to my beautiful wife, Zanny (her name is Suzanne – but anyone who knows her calls her Zanny), and a father to my three wonderful children, Summer, Preston, and Matthew. They are wonderful and everything I do is for them. God and family always comes first in my life!
I am the founder of Music Motivation® (musicmotivation.com), and the creator of the Cool Songs Series (musicmotivation.com/coolsongs), and the Essential Piano Exercises Course (essentialpianoexercises.com). I teach weekly online group piano lessons to students all over the world (essentialpianolessons.com) and also teach a few students privately in my home studio in St. George, Utah. I have a YouTube channel (youtube.com/jeraldsimon) and I love learning everything I can and want to help myself and others do our best and live our best life. I have written several motivation/self help books (i.e. Perceptions, Parables, and Pointers, Motivation in a Minutes), and motivational poetry books (i.e. The ‘As If’ Principle [motivational poetry] and Poetry that Motivates).
This is my Purpose and Mission in life:
“My purpose and mission in life is 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.” – Jerald Simon
After publishing my first two music books in 2007, my music studio more than doubled. Parents and other piano teachers sent their piano students who were not enjoying piano lessons to me hoping I could motivate and inspire them to keep playing the piano. The only problem was, with the majority of these new students not wanting to take piano lessons anymore, more than half of my studio now wanted to quit piano lessons. Some even said they actually hated the piano. Every lesson became drudgery, dread, and despair, and that is just what I was feeling during their piano lesson! I’m sure they felt worse than I did because they thought piano lessons were a waste of their time and felt they had better things to do. They did not see the value in playing the piano because they were not having FUN! Now I want piano students to work hard, push themselves, and learn to do difficult things. It takes persistence to learn to play the piano. It takes effort, practice, dedication, and hard work. But I believe it can and should also be a FUN and enjoyable process.
I had a problem and had to figure out how to motivate and inspire these piano students. If you are a piano teacher or a parent of a piano student, maybe you can relate to what I experienced in trying to motivate my piano students.
I began composing a piano solo for each individual piano student during their piano lesson in any style, key signature, time signature, and genre of his or her choosing. Some wanted faster music that sounded like pop, rock, jazz, blues, or boogie-woogie styles. Others wanted slower music that sounded more like new age, contemporary/classical, ballads, or hymns. I composed music my piano students wanted to play! After composing each piece I asked the students what they thought and almost without exception, every student said they thought the music sounded COOL! All of these pieces became known as COOL SONGS.
Parents and piano teachers began contacting me and asking me how they could begin using these COOL SONGS with their own piano students. My waiting list for my own piano studio exploded. Parents and teachers would be on a 3-5 year waiting list just to begin taking piano lessons from me so their students could have FUN piano lessons and use my COOL SONGS Series and my ESSENTIAL PIANO EXERCISES books.
I have compiled all of the various COOL SONGS I composed for my own piano students into a COOL SONGS Bundle to help motivate other piano students and share my COOL SONGS with piano teachers and piano students around the world!
Here is an official bio you can use…
First and foremost, Jerald is a husband to his beautiful wife, Zanny, and a father to his wonderful children. Jerald Simon is the founder of Music Motivation® (musicmotivation.com), a company he formed to provide music instruction through workshops, giving speeches and seminars, concerts and performances in the field of music and motivation. He is a composer, author, poet, and Music Mentor/piano teacher (primarily focusing his piano teaching on music theory, improvisation, composition, and arranging). Jerald loves spending time with his wife, Zanny, and their children. In addition, he loves music, teaching, speaking, performing, playing sports, exercising, reading, writing poetry and self help books, and gardening.
Jerald Simon is the founder of Music Motivation® and focuses on helping piano students and piano teachers learn music theory, improvisation, and composition. He refers to these areas as: Theory Therapy™, Innovative Improvisation™, and Creative Composition™. Simon is an author and composer and has written 30 music books featuring almost 300 original compositions, 15 albums (you can listen to Jerald’s music on Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, and all online music stations). Jerald’s books and CDs are also available from Amazon, Wal-Mart.com, Barnes and Noble and all major retail outlets. He has published three motivational poetry books featuring over 400 original poems (poetrythatmotivates.com), and is the creator of the best-selling Cool Songs Series (musicmotivation.com/coolsongs), the best-selling Essential Piano Exercises Series (essentialpianoexercises.com) and Essential Piano Lessons for piano students (essentialpianolessons.com). He has also created Essential Piano Teachers for piano teachers (essentialpianoteachers.com). You can watch Jerald’s videos on his YouTube channel at: youtube.com/jeraldsimon. Listen to Jerald’s music on all streaming sites and his podcast, Music, Motivation, and More – The Positivity Podcast with Jerald Simon on all podcast platforms.
In 2008, Jerald began creating his Cool Songs to help teach music theory – the FUN way, by putting FUN back into theory FUNdamentals. Jerald has also filmed hundreds of piano lesson video tutorials on his YouTube page (youtube.com/jeraldsimon). In addition to music books and albums, he is the author/poet of “The As If Principle” (motivational poetry), and the books “Perceptions, Parables, and Pointers,”“Motivation in a Minute,” and “Who Are You?”.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are always challenges as an entrepreneur. In the beginning, there is the struggle to get capital and stay afloat, as well as the varied challenges that come with trying to promote, market, and build awareness of everything you are doing. Trying to determine my specific market niche customers and how I would reach them was a challenge. Trying to manage the business, promote myself, create new product, and still have family time and home life separate from the business is always a challenge for entrepreneurs. There is often so much happening and so many metaphorical business hats that need to be worn at different times, that it can be overwhelming. Sometimes we had challenges getting more piano students. My ideal customer for my piano students are teens and adults. I also separate them into categories of three separate stages or phases: 1. The Apprentice Stage (for beginning level piano students), 2. The Maestro Stage (for early – intermediate level piano students), and 3. The Virtuoso Stage (for late intermediate – advanced level piano students). Since I love teaching teens and adults, I also wanted to separate the older teen and adults into non-teacher students and piano teacher students. I teach a lot of piano teachers how to teach piano lessons the fun way using my 35+ music books I have created. Helping piano teachers learn how to teach is different than simply teaching adults, because you are helping piano teachers learn new styles. The three main struggles most people have is learning about music theory, improvisation, and composition. I wanted to focus on helping piano students learn more about these three areas and I refer to them as Theory Therapy, Innovative Improvisation, and Creative Composition.
Sometimes, as an artist, composer, author, poet, and business owner/entrepreneur, it can be challenging – especially as a creator, to compose new music or write a poem and have someone not like it. Everyone has different interests, likes, and tastes, and that is perfectly fine – because not everyone will absolutely love everything you do. That was difficult for me in the beginning, because when someone didn’t like my music, book, poetry, etc., I took it personally since I had created it. It took a while to realize that some people prefer different styles or genres over others and not everyone would rave about every single songs I wrote or inspirational book. That is okay. It’s about finding the right people who do love what I am creating and even finding out what my niche target audience wants me to create for them. Once I started separating myself (somewhat) from my creations, it helped me not take it so personally if someone left a negative comment about a song I had written or reading a negative review on Amazon. In the beginning, it really takes the wind out of your sales and there are some people who just spread negativity. I was able to learn how to listen better and more intently to constructive feedback so I could make any necessary changes to create a better song, or write a better book. I adapted and learned how to do this so I could produce the best products possible.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am an author, composer, poet, and motivational speaker. I love creating and writing.
This is my Purpose and Mission in life:
“My purpose and mission in life is 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.” – Jerald Simon
With my piano teaching, what sets me apart is how I teach the practical application of music theory. I want students to learn how to play any music placed before them and also how to change the style and play any music at least 100 different ways in any key signature. I enjoy helping piano teachers and piano students learn how improvise, arrange, and even compose music of their own.
I currently have written 35+ music books featuring my own music I have composed or music I have arranged. I have also created music theory and improvisation instruction books. My Essential Piano Exercises Series is a series of five books that help piano students (and piano teachers) learn more about music theory, improvisation, and composition on the piano. The five books are: 1. Essential Piano Exercises Every Piano Player Should Know, 2. 100 Left Hand Patterns Every Piano Player Should Know, 3. Essential Jazz Piano Exercises Every Piano Player Should Know, 4. Essential New Age Piano Exercises Every Piano Player Should Know, and 5. Essential POP Piano Exercises Every Piano Player Should Know. This is by far my best-selling series. We have sold almost 80 thousand copies of my book, 100 Left Hand Patterns Every Piano Player Should Know, from this series alone. I have recorded and released 11 albums, 2 EPs, and 6 singles and my music can be streamed on any streaming site (i.e. Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Amazon, iHeart Radio, etc.). I have come out with pop and techno pop instrumental albums, and also meditation/relaxation music. I love creating various styles and genres of music, but I love sharing peace and positivity through my music and writing.
How do you think about happiness?
My family makes me happy. I will always put God and my family first in my life. I love being with my beautiful wife, Zanny, and love going out on dates, or doing home dates. I want to be with her every day and see the world with her and experience everything together. I love spending time with my family and traveling together. We love eating great food at exceptional restaurants.
I believe far too many people become so caught up in education, schooling, work, business, or other extra curricular activities – which are wonderful and good in moderation, but I believe the family frequently suffers and time spent with the family takes a back seat to everything else. I don’t want to let this happen to my family and try to do everything I can to be present and spend time with my family. I want to do everything I can to create memories with my family, have us eat together every day, pray together, and work and play together as much as we can.
I love seeing my children succeed and accomplish even the smallest of accomplishments. Seeing them do what they love and develop new talents and skills, brings me so much happiness. I love getting to know people and talking with them on a very deep and even life changing level, where almost within minutes of meeting each other, we are speaking and sharing things that lifelong friends would share with one another. I love smiling and helping others smile. One of the best feelings in the world is complimenting someone else and seeing a smile light up their countenance and shine in their eyes. Serving and helping other people makes me happy because I want others to experience happiness and feel empowered, enlightened, and inspired in everything they do. I am happiest when I can share my happiness with others. I try to share peace and positivity through my music and writing and want others to know they are loved and that I will pray for them and want the very best for them.
Pricing:
- $6.95 – $9.95 for PDF books from my website (musicmotivation.com) for my PDF books.
- $9.95 – $29.95 for the paperback books from Amazon
- $49.95 for the Cool Songs Series
- $159.95 – $169.95 for my Customer for Life and Essential Piano Teachers Lifetime Studio Licenses
- $160.00 – $320.00 per month for individual piano lessons (in person or online with me) per month
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.musicmotivation.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeraldsimon
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeraldsimon
- Twitter: https://x.com/jeraldsimon
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/jeraldsimon
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jeraldsimon
- Other: https://www.empoweredbypositivity.com/
