LISA SPINK Matthew Hart is able to find
a balance between his love for music and his job as a resident in
the department of anesthesiology at the UCLA Medical Center. His CD
"Comet" is forthcoming and blends folk, bluegrass along with other
genres of music.
By Antero Garcia
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Like most other residents at the UCLA Medical Center, Matthew
Hart is frequently on call.
Unlike most other residents, however, Hart has found enough
spare time to not only keep up his passion for playing guitar, but
also release his first CD, “Comet.”
“I love being a physician,” Hart said.
“It’s extremely satisfying to take care of
people.”
The job is not only fulfilling for Hart, it’s also an
outlet for him to promote his music tirelessly to the staff of the
hospital. Hart said that he constantly pages the doctors about his
upcoming gigs and sometimes even plays his music in the operating
rooms.
“”˜Learning To Breathe’ is a favorite in the
liver transplant room, which is kind of odd,” he said.
“Doctors are always on call, so you have to really push them
to go out to a show. The anesthesia department at UCLA is very
supportive.”
However, the anesthesia department isn’t the only support
that Hart receives; he has attracted a loyal fan base. One fan and
close friend is Lynn Wang, a staff research assistant who graduated
from UCLA last June as a physiological science student.
“I have known Matt since last summer while I was
volunteering in the operating room of Santa Monica UCLA Medical
Center and I have attended a few of his performances since,”
Wang said.
Hart is adamant about the importance of a good live performance
and feels that it is imperative as a performer to make the concert
experience much more than a series of songs.
“I love the connection a performer can have with his
audience,” Hart said. “Hopefully that happens when I am
on stage, and it’s more of a communication between me and the
audience.”
Indeed Hart has made that connection with members of his
audience through the personal touches that he puts into his
concerts.
“At one of Matt’s performances, he sang a song for
the pre-meds in the audience called “˜Mitochondria,’
which he wrote in medical school,” Wang said. “We
loved it because it was such a clever way of presenting the kind of
material we’ve learned in our classes.”
While Hart loves both medicine and music, he finds it difficult
to be involved so actively in both fields. At the same time, Hart
sees his two interests as interconnected.
“It’s always been sort of a conflict for me, but I
think that my medical life sort of inspires a lot of what I write
about.”
One such song that was inspired by his medical practices is the
liver transplant favorite, “Learning To Breathe,” which
Hart said is basically about the challenge doctor’s face of
having to learn their practice on a patient.Â
It is these autobiographical songs that make “Comet”
a CD that Hart is proud of. The recording process for the album was
especially rigorous due to Hart’s work duties at the
hospital.
“It was really fun recording,” Hart said. “We
did it up in this place in Van Nuys over the process of six months.
I would work one day from 8 in the morning until 8 the next morning
and have the next day off, so I would just go to the
studio.”
Although the work was exhausting, Hart has integrated many
different styles together to create a truly unique ambiance on his
15-song CD.
“The album is pretty eclectic,” Hart said. “It
has a little bit of country, a little bit of bluegrass, a little
bit of pop and a little bit of ““ for lack of a better term
““ a world music/Hispanic element to it, which is bizarre
because I’m not Hispanic.”
Hart does note, however, that much of his music has been
influenced by the various localities that he has lived in
throughout his life. Originally from Texas, Hart attended the
University of Texas, Austin, where he picked up the country sound
of his music.
“Austin is a great music scene,” Hart said.
“It has a lot of blues, bluegrass and country and I was
really into that.”
Hart’s experiences with music in Austin also led him to
pick up the mandolin, an instrument that he acknowledges is a bit
more difficult to play than the guitar. However, this is only
because Hart has been playing guitar for such a long time, and it
has become second nature to him.
“In the seventh grade I learned to play guitar and started
my first band with a couple of friends,” Hart said.
“The first guy I ever played with was Rhett Miller who is now
with the Old 97s. We went to school together in Texas.”
Soon after his interests in music were sparked in Texas, Hart
traveled east to New York where he entered medical school at
Columbia University. Upon finishing his studies, Hart moved out to
Los Angeles, where he has since been fulfilling his residency as an
anesthesiologist for the past three years.
With as much enjoyment Hart gets from the medical world, he
admits that the lure of lucrative success which the music world
offers is very tempting.
“I love being a physician, there is no doubt about
it,” Hart said. “It’s extremely satisfying to
take care of people. We’re taking care of people who are
having heart transplants and it’s exciting to know I’m
going to get up tomorrow and do that.
“At the same time, if I had the opportunity to do music
for a couple of years and it would pay off my enormous financial
loans, I would be hard pressed not to do it,” he
continued.
Money, however, is not the driving force behind Hart’s
music. Instead, Hart finds gratification in the words he ponders
and the smiles they create.
“Success for me is being productive, prolific and just
being original,” he said. “The financial aspects of
musical success are just so hard to count on that you really have
to focus on creative success and be happy with a job well
done.”
And Hart has plenty to be happy about. With his many
performances and his soon to be released album, Hart has truly
touched people, both with his skills as a physician and as a
vocalist.
“Matt’s a wonderful guy and I greatly admire him for
following through with his passions,” Wang
said. “It isn’t easy leading a life outside of the
hospital as a doctor, but he’s given us hope that it can be
done.”
MUSIC: Matthew Hart’s CD,
“Comet,” will be released on April 13 and can be
pre-ordered on his Web site at