About Simple Harmonic Motion

Simple Harmonic Motion releases music that moves across three closely related traditions.

First, improvised music rooted in jazz. While we’re cautious about labels, the vocabulary, history, and feel of jazz remain central to this work. Upcoming projects in this area include a solo piano release by John Bickerton.

Second, contemporary classical chamber music. These projects involve ensemble performance—composed, improvised, or hybrid—where musical events are deliberate and structured, shaped through a revisable process toward a specific artistic result.

Third, vanguard experimental masterworks of the past. This strand focuses on historically important experimental music, with particular attention to the New York School and the generation that followed. Many of these projects center on graphic scores and text pieces. Our releases of Atlas Eclipticalis and Four Systems belong to this category. Future releases will include early graphic scores by Robert Ashley and text works by Pauline Oliveros, Christian Wolff, and their contemporaries.

Simple Harmonic Motion began with projects by its founder, John Bickerton. As the label evolves, it aims to become a platform for like-minded musicians working across improvised music, contemporary chamber practices, and historically grounded experimental forms.

Founder’s Note

I’m John Bickerton, a composer and pianist, and the founder of Simple Harmonic Motion. After completing graduate studies in music composition at Boston University, I moved to Brooklyn in 1985, drawn to New York by the possibility of a life in music. I came to pursue jazz, and like many musicians, spent years playing throughout the city for little money but a great deal of experience.

Over time, my path shifted. I built a music business licensing stock music to production companies and corporations, and for the next two decades learned firsthand the realities of sustaining an independent creative enterprise—the highs, the lows, and the discipline required to keep going.

In late 2018, I returned to composing. That return reshaped my priorities and led directly to the creation of Simple Harmonic Motion: a label grounded in improvisation, experimental traditions, and the belief that careful listening and deliberate process still matter.