u/ScottJSimon

This is a preview of the second lecture from the Guitar as Alchemy series. Precision as Fear examines how technical mastery, speed, and performative emotion often stem from the same root: fear. It looks at the cultural conditioning that turns precision into a way to earn worth, speed into escape, and emotion into a staged mask.

The episode asks what remains when the mask is removed and the maker is stupefied.

Full episode coming soon.

New album agnosis:
https://scottjsimon.bandcamp.com/album/agnosis

Free notation and related writing on Substack:
https://scottjsimon.substack.com

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus:
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://scottjsimon.com

Pho nya is the Tibetan word for messenger, carrying communication between humans (mi) and the spirits of the three realms - lha (upper), nyen (middle), and lu (lower) - within the totality of conditioned existence (sipa), used in the Bön ritual tradition (pronounced Bone).

The bowls are struck and left to decay into long overtone drones, tones layered so their oscillations beat against each other rather than resolve. There is no melody built here, only sustained resonance treated as a vessel, sound sent across a threshold rather than composed for an audience. This is closer to invocation than performance, the kind of low continuous drone used in shamanic trance work to open a passage between worlds rather than to entertain.

Played on a 24 bowl Himalayan Bön bowl set, honoring the 24 Dzogchen masters of the Zhang Zhung Bön lineage, the oral transmission passed from Kuntu Zangpo through nine Sugatas to Sangwa Dupa, then through 24 successive masters ending with Tapihritsa in the seventh century. All 24 are said to have attained the rainbow body. Source: https://vajranatha.com/oral-tradition-from-zhang-zhung/

Bön is the pre-Buddhist shamanic tradition of the Himalayas, and this bowl set comes from Bön shaman lineage smiths. The piece runs two and a half minutes, a single message delivered rather than a piece built toward.

This piece closes the agnosis album, available in full on Bandcamp:
https://scottjsimon.bandcamp.com/album/agnosis

Free music articles available at:
https://scottjsimon.substack.com

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus:
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Singing Bowls: Himalayan 24 Bön bowl set
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://scottjsimon.com

This series looks at music as a form of inner alchemy, where the guitar becomes a tool for transformation instead of performance or self-expression.

In this first episode I talk about profane musicianship as a way of moving past mechanical playing and exaggerated emotional display, and I also explore the idea of the guitar as an alchemical crucible. These two approaches, one coming from cultural critique and the other from inner work, support each other in the effort to bring more depth and presence back into music.

0:00 Introduction
1:30 Profane Musicianship
4:50 Guitar as Alchemy
9:14 Convergence
11:14 Closing

New album agnosis:
https://scottjsimon.bandcamp.com/album/agnosis

Free notation available at:
https://scottjsimon.substack.com/

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus:
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://scottjsimon.com

A chromatic major 10ths (major 3rds in second octave) exercise in eighth notes in open position, designed as a quick warmup for all four fret-hand fingers. Thumb plays bass notes, m-i alternate on the upper octave. Open strings are used where available, and cross-string movement leads with m.

Free notation available at:
https://scottjsimon.substack.com/p/chromatic-major-10ths-warmup-classical

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus:
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me

A chromatic fifths exercise in eighth notes in open position, designed as a quick warmup for all four fret-hand fingers. Thumb plays bass notes, m-i alternate on the upper octave. Open strings are used where available, and cross-string movement leads with m.

Free notation available at:
https://scottjsimon.substack.com/p/chromatic-fifths-warmup-classical

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus:
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me

A chromatic octave exercise in eighth notes in open position, designed as a quick warmup for all four fret-hand fingers. Thumb plays bass notes, m-i alternate on the upper octave. Open strings are used where available, and cross-string movement leads with m.

Free notation available at:
https://scottjsimon.substack.com/p/chromatic-octave-warmup-classical

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus:
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me

Lucid Shift is an original composition featuring an asymmetric 11/4 vamp that drives through a sequence of major ninth chords before shifting into a dark chromatic middle section of tritone substitutions and altered dominants, then opening into a floating passage of augmented and altered harmonies ending on a sustained cadence.

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus:
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me

Agnosis is a three-movement suite for solo classical guitar exploring non-functional harmony, open string drones, and ECM-influenced textures. Each movement presents a distinct sonic world: sustained altered chords with contrapuntal intermezzo, a chromatic arpeggio etude with pulsing bass heartbeat, and a harmonic soundscape of dark introspection.

The three movements are:
0:00 I. Still Air
3:40 II. Signal Drift
5:08 III. Glass Hours

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus: 
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/publishers/s/scott-j-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me

Glass Hours is the third movement of my Agnosis suite. Altered chord voicings shimmer through open string resonance, creating an ambience of suspended tension and dark introspection.

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/arrangeme/566/scott-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me

Signal Drift is the second movement of my Agnosis suite. A triplet-based fingerpicking pattern (pim-ami) grouped as sixteenth-notes creates a pulsing bass heartbeat while open string drones shimmer above a chromatically shifting harmonic landscape.

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/arrangeme/566/scott-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me

Still Air is the first movement of the Agnosis Suite for classical guitar.

It features non-functional harmony with floating altered chords and a contrapuntal intermezzo, creating a mood of stasis and suspended reflection.

Sheet Music available at Sheet Music Plus: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/category/arrangeme/566/scott-simon/

Guitar: 2021 Thomas C60
Mics: Audio-Technica AT4040/4041
Camera: Canon T3i
Recording: OBS Studio
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro

https://simonmusic.me