Simple Harmonic Motion

Simple Harmonic Motion is an independent label devoted to contemporary and experimental music grounded in structural balance and open-form practice. The label presents both original compositions and significant works from the American experimental tradition, with an emphasis on clarity of form, spatial organization, and performer agency.

Recent releases include recordings of John Cage’s Atlas Eclipticalis and Earle Brown’s Four Systems, alongside new works that explore disciplined form within modern compositional language.

New From Simple Harmonic Motion…

Four Systems

Four distinct realizations of Earle Brown’s celebrated 1954 graphic score

Composition Realizations by John Bickerton

Learn More

Purchase

Atlas Eclipticalis

The Music of John Cage and Earle Brown

Composition Realizations by John Bickerton

Learn More

Purchase

Earle Brown’s Four Systems: The Mobile Score

Four Systems is a landmark "open-form" graphic score composed by Earle Brown on the afternoon of January 20, 1954. It was created as a spontaneous birthday present for pianist David Tudor while Brown and John Cage were backstage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music during...

Perfect Lives - A television opera by Robert Ashley

What Makes Perfect Lives a Radical Kind of Opera?

The Unique Structure of Robert Ashley’s Television Opera Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives employs a deliberately unconventional narrative structure that significantly departs from traditional opera and from typical linear storytelling. The narrative follows an...

John Cage’s Radio Music (1956)

John Cage's Radio Music, composed in 1956, is intended to be performed as a solo or ensemble piece for 1 to 8 performers, each using one radio. The piece has a specified duration of exactly six minutes. Radio Music was composed during a period when Cage heavily used...

John Cage: 0’00” and the Performance of Silence

Contemporary artists have explored and reimagined 0′00″ in new contexts.Composed in 1962, 0′00″—also known as 4′33″ No. 2—is seen as a major turning point in Cage’s work. It represents a clear break from his earlier style and marks the beginning of a new direction in...