Support me to bring my music to the world
Hello Everyone,
My name is Simon Daum, and I was raised in a family of eight kids, and yes, guess who of all those kids actually is number eight, right, thats me :) .. Since the moment where I was able to walk, my first run was to the piano, where I quickly discovered my love for expressing myselfe through my own compositions.
Since then, music has blessed my life so much, and somehow music has also become a anchor in difficult times. I was around 11 years old when my dream to become a fulltime composer became more serious. My parents tried hard to send me to get piano lessons, but for some reason, I loved composing my own music so much that my piano lessons didn't last very long, and so I just kept teaching myself and learning from my great musical role models, like Jon Schmidt, Thomas Newman, Ludovico Einaudi and Max Richter.
With around 25 I released my first music album called "New Hope", since when almost 20 additional music albums were produced.
When it all changed
There was a moment in life, that hit me really hard. When I was around 28 years old I got so heavily toxified that I eventually ended up being bedbound for several years, and with that, a very long and hard path began, a time where my family and I lost everything in life, whether that be health, home, car, job, a lot of money, social life, and with the intensitiy and strangeness of what the environmental toxification caused, even some friends.
For years noone knew what really struck me, and it was a time where we experienced rejection, lack of interest, empathy and care beyond what we believe was possible. The amount of disbelieve and ridicule from all sides could fill books, and was probably one of the hardest things for us to experience.
My condition became so bad, that even walking from the living room to the bath room was impossible, and it was also the time in my life where I had to quitt writing music for several years, more or less. It took a long time, a lot of sacrifices and courage to get somewhat back to life after about eight to ten years.
With that experience, music became a totally new meaning to me. No matter how painful or how difficult it all was, listening to the right kind of music gave me the deepest kinds of joy, comfort and hope, and it was in that moment of despair, when I promised myself that if I ever get back to writing music, I want to write music with true meaning and purpose, music that can do for others, what it has done for me in all these years.
The consequence
The consequence of my toxification was getting a illness called MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivity), which basically means that I get very similar conditions as when having MS or ALS each time I am exposed to smallest amounts of chemicals. It was because of me reacting to heavily on almost everything that took us seven years to find a home, a home for which we are more than gratefull today that we have found it, though I am still in the kind of condition that I have to work and sleep from the balcony.
Why this campaign?
Though we have brought it very far in the past 10 years, compared to how it was back then, life still has never been the same since it all started. I lost my job back then, was unemployed for several years, and have never been able to really get back to producing the kind of income I would want for my family. I never really got into managing how to become a fulltime composer, there simply were always too many other challanges, and never enought money to really get started. Most of the money we had, always had to be spend on things regarding health.
My dream
But my dream from childhood is still present today as it was back then. Never has my desire to compose music that gives comfort, hope and joy, and with that, meaning and purpose to others, been greater than it is now.. Over the years, I have met so many people that have to fight severe illness, loss, or other kinds of tragedies, and the more I can contribute to lighten their burdens, the more it fills my heart with gratitude.
Music is just one tool, but it is one of the tools I feel I can contribute the most, and so I want to use all the money to be able to keep writing music, with having to provide for a family.
Thank you all for taking the time :)
