The Guitar Journal

Jesse Paliotto (00:09)
Hello everyone and welcome to the Guitar Journal podcast where we love to talk about making music, particularly through the lens of fingerstyle guitar as well as jazz. I'm your host Jesse Pagliato and I love bringing the best of the music community to you here on the Guitar Journal podcast. I am excited and grateful today to have with us Trevor Gordon-Hall. Trevor is a pioneering guitarist and composer who's revolutionized what's possible on acoustic guitar, particularly being known for developing the kalimba tar, wild hybrid of guitar and african limba.

Even got some shout outs from John Mayer and Steve Miller on that. He's based in Philly. He's been touring through 17 country. He was rated a top 30 under 30 guitarist by Acoustic Guitar Magazine. He's got millions of streams online. The guy's legit. And whether he's performing, he teaches also on platforms like Jamplay and Truefire. He collabs a lot, but the guy's always pushing boundaries and connecting with folks all over the place. So Trevor, I'm really grateful to have you here with us today. Thanks, man.

Trevor Gordon Hall (01:05)
I'm grateful to be here and thank you. That's a nice introduction. Appreciate that.

Jesse Paliotto (01:10)
I know we chatted a little bit kind of via email as we were leading up and one of the things I wasn't aware you were working on but maybe we can even start there sort of at the most recent stuff is I knew you mostly from solo fingerstyle guitar stuff but actually been working on like a nylon string project as a trio with Andy McKee and Calum Graham You want to talk about that a little bit? What was that? What was that project?

Trevor Gordon Hall (01:31)
Yeah,

to separate those, do have a solo nylon string project. That just came out. Yeah, yeah. But then the other, we can start with the trio record is a project with Andy McKee and Callum Graham, some fellow brothers in the field. And we've known each other for a lot of years and we've toured. Andy and I have toured together. I've played some shows with Callum.

Jesse Paliotto (01:38)
okay.

Trevor Gordon Hall (01:57)
Andy's toured with Calum and back in 2019 we ended up doing just a short run of dates on the West Coast, started in Arizona but then on the West Coast with us three and it was called the Guitar Masters Tour and so the format of that was each player does their, you you have your set and then at the end of the night we all sit in on each other's songs. So we're sort of adding, you know, these textures and

Jesse Paliotto (02:21)
interesting.

Trevor Gordon Hall (02:25)
when you get multi sometimes one guitar player is one too many right you know depend so put three i know

Jesse Paliotto (02:30)
But that's the first thing that comes to mind is like, it's already

like, your guys' compositions are already fairly dense. How do you work in two more guitars?

Trevor Gordon Hall (02:37)
Yeah,

well I think because fingerstyle in general is, I always say it's not a genre, it's a tradition and part of that tradition is it welcomes all of these different influences but it really does try to cover a lot of the basis of what an ensemble, know, it's a sort of solo ensemble approach to the instrument. So I remember thinking, well how the heck is this gonna work, you know, and you know we sent some tunes back and forth, you know, one of my tunes, one of Andy's and one of Callum's and we're like,

Alright, let's show up on sound check and let's see how this thing goes. And it was astounding to me how sensitive and tasteful each of those players were and not getting it. It's like, what is the core of the song and how do they support that as opposed to like, let me come in screaming with a pentatonic blues solo for 12 minutes, you know, it was just the wisdom of those players was really fascinating to me.

And to those guys as well, because I think that was just like our intuitive approach having never voiced that.

Jesse Paliotto (03:43)
So did you pass around, like did you guys pre-record and be like, hey, I was thinking about doing this part, does that work for you? Or you just showed up cold, nobody had heard anything. Wow.

Trevor Gordon Hall (03:51)
complete cold, but I you know we sent like you know

each of our songs are songs that we have performed in our solo sets So it's not like they were completely new songs. You know we did do some of that on this record, but The thing that solidified it for me is I've played one of Andy's classics is called for my father and I've played that you know for you know a decade with him on the road just as a duet and Callum the same thing just as a duet and so the very first time

we sat down to play as a trio, having never talked about it, having never rehearsed it, somehow the parts that he chose were completely complementing the parts that I chose and even in different registers. So it was like, man, there's this real magic here. It almost feels like one 18 stringed instrument as opposed to three guitars, you know? Yeah, so that was an extremely fascinating experience. And at the end of that, we were like, well, we got to make a record together.

Jesse Paliotto (04:41)
That was wild.

Trevor Gordon Hall (04:50)
So one thing led to another and you know we had some ups and downs but we did release the record in just last year. We did some touring in the south, we're going to Japan coming up. So that was one that was like a really really special project. So many Fingerstyle players sort of grow up as now we're a community of loners as we're older but we really grew up because we have this sort of introverted and really personal narrative approach to Fingerstyle and so

Jesse Paliotto (04:59)
Awesome.

Trevor Gordon Hall (05:19)
When you start putting that in an ensemble context, things can get weird really quickly. But this was a really great lesson in opening up and trusting to bring a song that you have cherished as a solo piece for so long and put it in an ensemble setting with really wonderful human beings and how do they approach, you know, adding to that. It was awesome. And now I'm just charged up to do all kinds of collaborations because I love doing that.

Jesse Paliotto (05:48)
Yeah, it's interesting that like with a lot of my own personal tracking with like fingerstyle guitar and my own interest in it was kind of going up through the 2010s. And then COVID of course, you know, closed so much stuff and it was a natural thing for anybody that was using that genre. like, I'm okay, I can sit at home, I can record, I can stream. I'm a one person show. like, and COVID it's interesting also in that I don't know that there was ever any clear line where everybody's like, it's over, we're done. Like it's been this five year.

Trevor Gordon Hall (05:58)
Yeah.

It's so fuzzy.

Jesse Paliotto (06:16)
like gradual return to normalcy. But for me, it feels very much like right now, like there's so much more normalcy back, like being able to do all the collabs and do it all in person. That's cool.

Trevor Gordon Hall (06:26)
Totally.

Yeah, we had this idea, guess, you know, 2019 is when sort of the genesis of the idea started, but then COVID like derailed everything for us as well. We ended up recording it eventually in 2023. So it did take a couple of years. So the same thing. was like fuzzy. Like, are we at the point? Like, are we good now? Can we start? Can we not? You know, what's the what's going on? Yeah. Yeah. Actually, 2022, that was when we recorded, but.

Jesse Paliotto (06:45)
Yeah. We do this like six feet away on a stage and have people sit six feet away. Like, how do we do this?

Oh yeah, earlier even in the, yeah, Callum Graham too. I have to give him a shout out for, he was one of the most sort of inspirational things like his song, Tabula Rasa, which he must've come out with. Oh, right on. I would guess, did he write it in like 2012 or it feels like it was a while back. Cause I remember literally like showing my dad's guitar player and showing him like at my house like.

Trevor Gordon Hall (06:55)
early area.

which is one of the songs we perform as a trio, which is awesome. Yeah.

It's yeah, it sounds about right. Sounds about right.

Jesse Paliotto (07:20)
look at this, I wanna play this, this is amazing. And it like, it blew my mind in that how musical and melodic it was in addition to being like just technically mind blowing. Yeah, so big.

Trevor Gordon Hall (07:22)
Yeah.

Right.

I think that

is always the impulse of lot of guitar players is to lean into the technical side. I know especially now, so much of fingerstyle is sort synonymous with really aggressive, fast-paced shredding to distract you at a red light when you're scrolling. But what is the deeper musical context? It's so interesting to see

Jesse Paliotto (07:49)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Trevor Gordon Hall (07:59)
where people can take it technically, but what is that serving? And I think that's like a real core value that Andy, Calum, and I have, and we talk about all the time. And when we really discovered that, it was something to cherish. And so to me, like the real heart of the fingerstyle tradition really is about that. Like what influences are you bringing in? What are you discovering about yourself? Everybody has their own taste and...

Jesse Paliotto (08:13)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (08:26)
How do you implement that into your approach, into your own compositions? And so what is the song, know, kind of, are you saying, not just what can you do? I think that's a real, that's always gotta be something that the scene recalibrates back to, and I hope it always will.

Jesse Paliotto (08:42)
Yeah, I know there's like a joke that sort of floats around maybe in some of the Reddit threads and stuff about basically a lot of modern fingerstyle acoustic players are just metal shredders under a new format, which is not a bad thing. It's just there's a certain dynamic, which is more about, you know, pushing the boundaries of technique, which is also its own cool thing. You talked about the nylon project too. I'd love to hear a little bit about that.

Trevor Gordon Hall (08:51)
Right. Right.

Right. Right.

Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (09:06)
I, I, that's a area of curiosity for me right now is just now in string where, you can take, where you can take that.

Trevor Gordon Hall (09:09)
Sure.

I'm sure you feel just how insanely different it is than steel string. I know it's a guitar, I know it's tuned the same way, and to the outside guitar player it's like, it's just another guitar. But it's not. It is way different. And one of the things that was most difficult to me initially is just the touch of it is so much lighter. It doesn't sustain the same way, so the way you approach playing notes is different, but also the intonation. my gosh, like...

Jesse Paliotto (09:17)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (09:40)
the intonation of nylon string guitars was just driving me insane.

Jesse Paliotto (09:45)
What was it doing?

Was it just as you went up, were just losing accuracy like past the 12th fret or yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (09:49)
Totally. yeah.

And I just kind of like, know, anecdotal, every time I would pick up a different nylon string guitar, I would just try different things and I'm like...

this is where it goes out of tune. It seemed to be consistent. I talked to a couple of luthiers and repair guys, and in the nylon string world, there's a little bit more adherence to tradition, whereas, at least coming from the finger style and the builders that I have interacted with, and my personal builder, Sheldon Schwartz, for my steel string, it's like everything is up for experimentation. It's slightly different. Not that it's not. There's really great progressive nylon string. I just hadn't encountered them.

Jesse Paliotto (10:27)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (10:28)
But I did get a nylon string guitar and part of what I wanted to do with this whole album was instead of thinking in terms, standard fingerstyle songs for me take weeks, months, years to write even, you know? And so just kind of as like a creative and also a mental health exercise, it was like, I want to...

practice a little bit more. Instead of looking at all of the options, I want to really make decisions. I want to give myself one hour and take just a, you know, one of my dear friends who passed away was named Michael Chapdalane. And he used to always say that, you know, writing his songs were kind of like leaving letters to his future self to find his way back home, you know. So I was thinking about like,

Jesse Paliotto (11:00)
Mm. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (11:21)
What are the concepts, the sort of the mental health concepts that years from now I'll be able to come back to and sit with those as kind of a personal meditation and then just go to the guitar, try to play something I hadn't played before and just give myself one hour to write the song, to arrange it, no judgment, and then on to the next. And which was a very different, now put...

Jesse Paliotto (11:40)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (11:43)
all of that new approach also on a new instrument with the nylon string guitar. So it was like really forcing this kind of creativity within restrictions with some, which sometimes that's when new insights are born. If you have an open road and you can go anywhere, sometimes it can be paralyzing, but here's exactly.

Jesse Paliotto (12:01)
I'm a big believer

that creativity thrives under constraints. you tell somebody that you need to write a short story in science fiction format and you've got one day and they will write it. You tell them can write anything you want and walk away and they're gonna be sitting there three weeks later not sure what to write. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (12:06)
Totally.

Yep. Yep.

It's amazing. Yeah.

But I guess certain personality types like mine growing up, was like, you know, I don't get these restrictions off. I need to be free. And now coming to realize, you know, I turned 40 this year, so I'm becoming an official old man. Now it's like, wow, that that same principle of like, there is a lot of freedom and opportunity within the restrictions. And so

Jesse Paliotto (12:24)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (12:39)
I just approached that and so I have this one microphone that is from Vanguard Audio. It's a stereo microphone. I have it on the wall. I made this contraption so it can come down and when I would come in in the morning, early in the morning in the shed to kind of do my practicing, mic would come down and I would just sort of play with the ideas and record. And so it was nice to have a very one guitar, one microphone, it has a stereo signal, you know, then I could do a DI but

really try to just, what is the moment I can crystallize and not overanalyze? And so that's what that record is and that officially came out. did monthly singles and then the record officially came out at the end of 2020, actually, yeah, just last year, 2024. So thank you.

Jesse Paliotto (13:21)
Yeah, yeah.

Oh, congratulations. the

recording, I'm really curious. That's an interesting workflow. I mean, it sounds idyllic. Like, I'm going to come out in the morning, I'm to have my coffee, I'm going sit here, I'm just going to play. Are you recording the whole session? Like, you're there for whatever it is, an hour. You record an hour session, then later you're like, which five minutes did I like? I'm going to cut that? Or how did you do that?

Trevor Gordon Hall (13:37)
Yeah.

Sometimes I would, you know, get the microphone down and just kind of record some ideas, but that didn't spark as much because I wanted to feel like I was pushing into the fragile frontiers of the creative process without feeling like I was cataloging it yet. I knew I had my time limit, but a lot of times I would just sit with the ideas, you know, the song title, the concept.

pick a key, okay, this one's got to be an E flat and I'm in standard tuning. So buckle up, buddy. You know, you're in between the dots for this one, you know? And then I would, I would sit with that and then, and then at the end of that session, then I would, you know, either record the idea on my phone and then come back and track it later when I sort of felt like I had a grasp on what the piece is. But I also made sure that I kept the pieces very simple in structure and very simple in

Harmony because that's another thing that like not Complexity is not always better You know so I forced myself instead of trying to like get all crazy with like all of the key Modulations and all of that like you know as guitar players We really have this like confusion between if something is simple. We think it's simplistic But sometimes something simple can be elegant

That's what I tried to lean into, to get out of the brain of like, have to make this as complex as possible because so and so did this so I have to one up and one up. And I love that. Like we have some of the great records, you know, the Beatles and the Beach Boys were trying to one up and that gave us some really, really great work. I love that. But I did that for so many years. I really needed to just go back and try to get in touch with what is it that I really love about this thing. And from that place...

Jesse Paliotto (15:22)
Yeah, that can drive you.

Trevor Gordon Hall (15:35)
honestly try to create something. And that was a really good project to sort of recalibrate me to that.

Jesse Paliotto (15:41)
Yeah, the,

It's accessible more, it's more accessible as well. When the song structure is comprehensible, it depends if you're writing for other, in that competitive mode, especially with other instrumentalists, where trying to take sophistication to these levels where like the average listener is like, I don't know what you're doing. I'm sure it's cool. But, and like, I was thinking about this, even playing, was trying to do this Tommy Emmanuel song, Papa George, I know if you know it. But the structure of the song is not complex. It's like A with like this in between to the B.

Trevor Gordon Hall (15:48)
Right.

Yes.

Yep. Yep.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jesse Paliotto (16:15)
A with this in between to the B, A with this in between to the B in an outro. That's it. It's not crazy like, of course he's playing amazing playing, but it's not this like, you know, he's not tool. He's not putting in these odd time signatures and doing that stuff. And yet it's like a really compelling song. Like I'm a big lover. Elegance is a great word for that.

Trevor Gordon Hall (16:18)
Yep. Yep.

Totally.

Mm-hmm. That's one thing that I've always loved about Tommy is that like the songs are the vehicle for the invitation of the live performance. And so he has some songs that like on the record and then when you see it live, he will change certain things, go in different directions. And that's something that's really cool. a lot of those tunes have this really elegant structure and that allows him the freedom, depending on what he's feeling from night to night, to go in one direction or another.

Jesse Paliotto (16:44)
Yes.

That's a great point. You lock yourself in.

Yeah, with a complex structure, it can come off that you're like, don't bug like if I if anything throws me off, I will lose my place and not be able to finish this. Yeah, you want like something that gives you breathing room.

Trevor Gordon Hall (17:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Totally.

Yeah, I learned a lot from him and that front. did some dates with him and then just, you know, the times that we've been kind of like backstage somewhere just talking and sharing life and he's a wonderful human being. But that was one thing, just like really being open with your own catalog. And if he's feeling one night like I want to keep it, you know, this structure or maybe I'm going to have a medley into another one.

each night is this freedom and opportunity. think that's what makes him so exciting to watch live because every show is different. And that's a really different approach than what I grew up with in my fingerstyle experience. So I really, really love that about him.

Jesse Paliotto (17:57)
probably keeps it interesting for him too. By the way, just a quick callback between the dots. That would be a great blog for jazz guitar. We're not playing in G and C anymore people. A flat, E flat, D I'm down for all of it. You were getting into kind of the idea of mental health, kind of a couple of paragraphs back.

Trevor Gordon Hall (18:00)
Totally.

Totally, yep. We're gonna do this at E flat standard tuning Yep, yep Yep

Hmm. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (18:27)
Can you talk a little bit about that? Like how do you stay mentally healthy as a musician? I can imagine there's, I don't have to imagine, I feel the pressures from how do I make a living or how do I make any revenue off of this? Also, there's so much competition online. Like I've tried and post online and I'm up against Tommy Emmanuel. Like how do I, and trying to feel like I'm doing something worthwhile with my time in the midst of all that pressure. I'd just be curious like what you think about all that.

Trevor Gordon Hall (18:41)
I know.

I would begin to answer in a few different ways, but this is like an ongoing question. I think these are questions to constantly ask and deepen. I know that at the core, creatives are deeply sensitive people, and we are thrown into an ecosystem in which it is extremely harsh. you put every single piece of content has a metric attached to it that's public.

and what that does to the process and what that does to you as a person and our self doubts. You the ground of asking those really, you know, digging into the roots of your life, who you are as a person, what is your taste, what is your personal narrative, and what are the kind of chords you like. It's very easy to make that secondary to like, well, what is the content I need to pump out so that I can fulfill the ego and drive engagement because

So many times, if you go that path, the algorithms change. And then it's not hit in the same way. And you get to this point, and I've met so many players along the way, that it's just kind of like you can tell they're operating in this sort of like shell mode. Like, well, this is what seems to work, you know? And they may like something else or may not even like guitar at all anymore, you know? So yeah, I think taking care of your mental health is really important.

Jesse Paliotto (19:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Interesting.

Trevor Gordon Hall (20:24)
And, you know, I tend to be a very introspective person, so I don't want to take this paradigm and throw it on people who are not that way. Because there are people that like, I just feel like the way that the ecosystem is set up is really, really effective for great communicators and extroverted, you know, and that's something to really celebrate. I've always struggled in those things, and so there is a part of me that wants to grow, but you really do have to tend your inner flame because it's easy to just get lost in

Jesse Paliotto (20:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (20:54)
the sea of metrics in comparison of everybody else that's doing this and doing this and so much better. I saw this, was a Corey Wong video years ago, I thought was really funny of him figured out this like, know, 18, know, constantly, you know, key change modulation version of Blackbird and you know, three views and then someone on TikTok comes out and is playing it for the first time and it's like 4 million views and you're like, no, you know, so.

Jesse Paliotto (21:20)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (21:22)
I find that like the way that the algorithms work nowadays is it's almost been this giant reset button on the working knowledge of the industry. So people may discover a certain thing through someone on TikTok in their bedroom that has already been an established tradition 25 years ago and they just don't know, but they're uncovering it. And so what does that do to the legacy artist who's like, dude, what the heck?

What does that do to the emerging artist who may be overly affirmed in their aspirations? Because that can create a problem too. Sometimes the worst thing is to have success before your hustle, to have success before your work ethic is built. Because you start to believe in this narrative that I must be something special. So I just do my thing.

Jesse Paliotto (21:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (22:13)
And will, you just assume it will always be the way that it is. It will always be summer, you know? But then when winter comes or, you know, the career kind of like has a little dip or the algorithms change, if you haven't done that work of figuring out who you are, what kind of person you want to be in the world, what kind of musician, what do feel like you bring to the table? Then the folks that I know have gone down that other path, that can be really lonely, you know? So...

Jesse Paliotto (22:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (22:41)
I always will opt for what does music mean to you and is there a way to kind of integrate like maybe there is something like change a big thing for me was like alright you gotta do you know the vertical video okay so can I can I just lean into that format a little bit that's a bit but still keep what I feel like is my thing I won't get the same engagement for all of these different reasons and I you know spent a lot of time

Jesse Paliotto (23:00)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (23:07)
beating myself up over like, well this is content good or not and I really try to come back to like the moment of creating. I call it the fragile frontiers when you don't know what this thing is yet, but it's giving you this light. know, I want a tune that I have on one of my records called Chase the Chills. Like you're feeling like something is emerging and you're following it. That's the most sacred part of the process to me. And I

Jesse Paliotto (23:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (23:34)
if you keep doing that work and do it consistently, the other side, you know, may or may not have the same metrics attached to it or not. Sometimes it does because it resonates with like an authenticity. But that's where I think that helps keep you a little bit more mentally stable. And so the nylon string project for me was a sort of recalibration back to that. So whatever happens with these tunes on the other side, I know that I've done this from a place of real

Jesse Paliotto (23:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (24:04)
connection and honesty with what early Trevor loved when I fell in love with music, you know? So I would begin to answer it that way, but obviously it gets complex quick, as you know. But I would say that the great superpower of creatives is their sensitivity, and the worst thing that's going to drive them to despair is their sensitivity and recognizing that this is your the biggest weight and burden on your shoulders and the greatest freedom at the same time, and that sucks. But

Jesse Paliotto (24:19)
and

Yeah. Yeah, it's the phrase that's coming to me is especially that last couple points you were making. Like if a beautiful song is written in a forest and there's no audience there to hear it, was it worth writing? And the answer is yes. It's a beautiful thing. And even if it's just for yourself, but we are in an environment that says, it's all about the clicks, man. No one's there to click on it. Was it worth it?

Trevor Gordon Hall (24:33)
I think that's the way it is.

Right? Right. Yes.

Right, right. Was it worth it? What a good,

that's so fascinating. What a good way to formulate that question. That's interesting. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (25:03)
It's just, it's,

mean, I'm sure so many musicians deal with this because.

it's, know, for every person you see online who's posting great stuff, there's got to be 10 or a dozen or a hundred at home that are writing but haven't gone into it and, started posting. And so there's a lot of folks making great music that may not be putting it out in the public square. I'm curious though, like in terms of protecting that fragile frontier time, protecting that sensitive part of ourselves, because I think that can get a little broken when you go out in public and you're kind of subject to the vagaries of, you know,

Trevor Gordon Hall (25:36)
Yes.

Jesse Paliotto (25:39)
TikTok or Instagram or whatever format. How do you are there ways that you try and give yourself space? Is there things you do where you're like, hey, I make sure I give myself this much time without a phone every day. I know that sounds pretty pedantic, but like whatever.

Trevor Gordon Hall (25:40)
Yep. Yep.

Mm.

I yeah, I think it's a pendulum thing. Like sometimes I'm super disciplined and you know, it's you know, no phone or email before noon or something like that. And then other times I'm like, you know, got to see the political news first thing in the morning. And I know this is terrible for my mental health, but I have to see it's like watching a car wreck, you know, so I go back and forth on that. a big thing for me was really re engaging with, you know, Zen practice of my, you know, mindfulness meditation.

Jesse Paliotto (26:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, I know it's so yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (26:21)
I fell in love with that back at university and reconnected with that. just did a retreat at a Zen monastery just a couple of weeks ago. So that helps keep me grounded and something to return back to. Like if there's sort of a still...

point in your life that you feel like you can return to consistently. And I also love having a space, you know, I know I feel extremely fortunate, but you can build a space, a sort of inner sanctuary, you know, in your home, in your basement, you know, apartment, which I have done in previous places that I've lived. Just having a space where it feels okay to not have to be another performer, to put on some sort of act.

Jesse Paliotto (26:51)
Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (27:09)
But we all need to decrease our screen time. And that's like a thing that I've been thinking about a lot more. You know, try doing things with like intermittent fasting. So I'm feeling more healthy and, you know, maybe fitting in clothes that I used to really love, you know, some years back, but I stopped since COVID because we all just sort of like, you know, inflated. Yeah. But the other thing is like when you go public with something, I think

Jesse Paliotto (27:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. 100%.

Trevor Gordon Hall (27:38)
the way that things are now, it's like there's this pressure to have to make the whole process public, meaning I just started this idea and now it has to go public. I just started this next thing, this next thing. And to me, that can be interesting. I know some people who've had a series of like, you I started ukulele and here's day one and they follow it through the year and that's interesting, you that's cool. But I think there's something to be said to like really do the work in solitude. And when you really feel like you have something to share,

Jesse Paliotto (27:44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (28:08)
then jump into that, because I think that that will really guide, again, those fragile frontiers that can really guide that process that if the response is good or not, if you get some crazy comment from, that doesn't affect you the same way if you already believe that the work is good. So I try to protect myself from that. When I will share something, it's because I really feel like there's something in there that was meaningful to me.

Jesse Paliotto (28:26)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (28:36)
And I always go back to that quote, all these quotes get attributed to Einstein, so I don't know if he actually said this, but it could have been him quoting another artist, but you know, what is most personal is most universal. I think about that a lot, like what is that metric, you know, the thing that really resonates within me, can I write from that place? Then when I feel like that is satisfied in me, when I share it.

Jesse Paliotto (28:48)
Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (29:01)
I feel like that is the added bonus. It's not the goal. I'm not looking for the likes and clicks. Although it's easy to get into the dopamine hit of that, and I've been guilty of that the way all of us are, but does that make sense? I think a good way to answer that.

Jesse Paliotto (29:05)
Yeah.

toy.

totally. And there's

a book, I think it's called The Power of Habit, doohickey or something. It's like a yellow and orange or yellow and red cover. But one of the probably the main takeaway I got from that book was this idea of Keystone Habits that when you

Trevor Gordon Hall (29:19)
Yes, yeah, forget the net, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Paliotto (29:31)
build these habits, make other habits easier to achieve. And the primary example is exercise. If you will kind of do that, all of a sudden you find you have willpower and kind of a mental fitness. All of a sudden you're like, yeah, eating okay is not that bad. Staying off my screen. Sorry, this is just kind of what you were saying about like those things sort of connect to this idea.

Trevor Gordon Hall (29:37)
Yeah.

Habit stacking kind of idea.

Jesse Paliotto (29:51)
Yeah,

Trevor Gordon Hall (29:51)
Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (29:52)
and that one actually gives you power for the next one where other ones may drain you. And so there's some things that if you nail those, it makes it a lot easier when you approach, all right, well, how do I not get sucked into the dopamine cycle on whether my latest post on my guitar practice routine gets any clicks? I don't know. I just went running for half an hour. I feel great. No likes. Who cares? I move on. But if you're not in a good place, you can tank a little bit or a lot, actually.

Trevor Gordon Hall (29:54)
Totally. Yep.

Right.

It's okay, yep.

Totally.

the you know, I think he talked about like, he's pretty disciplined about his writing when he was writing for the office. I think this was an interview with him years ago. And he had the same kind of idea, the habit stacking and starting each day with very small tasks, because it's like, well, I know I need to sit down and do x today. And that feels like each moment that builds up to it is this daunting thing. And then that's easy to just kind of like,

Jesse Paliotto (30:24)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Trevor Gordon Hall (30:43)
take the escape hatch and I'm just gonna check my email but you know at the end of the day that that's another two hours into related videos on your YouTube, all of that. But he's like, know, like the small wins. Start with those really small wins and you sort of like build up to the big task that you want. So I think it's exactly what you're saying. I think that's a helpful way to look at it.

Jesse Paliotto (30:46)
Yeah.

Totally.

Do you practice first thing in the morning? mean, you of implied that with an nylon string project. You were going out in the morning, but do you, is that like a conscious thing where you're like, I go out first thing so I get it done or something?

Trevor Gordon Hall (31:13)
Yeah, when my daughter was born in 2015 and I was always kind of like a late night guy and so I had to switch that because just the schedule, you I was never a morning person but I really forced myself. sort of like, I like the night quiet hours so just flipped it the other way and I started messing around with how early I could wake up, know, what's too early.

Jesse Paliotto (31:32)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (31:38)
And so I got crazy for a couple of years and I'm not quite as early as I used to be. But yeah, I do find that when you've done the deep work early in the day, it sets a tone for the rest of the day and it eliminates that sort of panic of like, you know, if I want to sit down with my wife and daughter and I are going through full house, you know, right now, it's just kind of a fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My daughter loves it. And it's nice to sit down and do that without the guilt of like, I should have practiced today. I need to do this. So.

Jesse Paliotto (31:58)
The TV show?

Yeah,

Trevor Gordon Hall (32:07)
I feel like the really important stuff early in the day so that as the day progresses you're kind of more in the main managing things. think it's Tim Ferriss said something like make before you manage and just that very simple principle that sort of helps the habit stacking not just in the day but in the weeks and the months because you feel like you're chipping away at something and each morning you revisit, you revisit, you revisit and it removes a lot of guilt and pressure that you put on yourself because you're like, well,

I know that I'm going to tackle this again tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And so I have a whole practice approach called structured spontaneity that sort of like highlights that. sometimes the pendulum will swing. Okay, sure. Yeah. So structure spontaneity. So anyway, well, I didn't want to, I didn't know if you wanted to go down that path or not, but so

Jesse Paliotto (32:49)
you gotta break that down now. All right, so what's that? You can't just put that out there and then be like, anyway, moving on.

Yeah, do it, do it, do it.

Trevor Gordon Hall (33:04)
I found myself, I'm on a Myers-Briggs, I'm an INFP, which like, we like open time, we like blank in the schedule, you blank time. We love the freedom, the ability to dream, you know, but it's just hard to get INFPs to just get stuff done, right? Because you could just exist somewhere between Earth and Saturn most days. Like how do you stay, what the Paul McCartney's whole thing was that like,

Jesse Paliotto (33:23)
Hahaha

Trevor Gordon Hall (33:32)
head in the clouds, feet on the ground, that kind of, you And so I realized that in high school, when I really wanted to start drilling down on my technique and refine things, I developed this sort of like three hour practice session that was this routine that would be broken down into like two and three minute increments. mean, so it's like an insane amount of tasks and I'm covering everything.

left hand, right hand, picking, finger picking, repertoire, new, chord, like everything. And so for me, there was like probably like maybe a month into that, I noticed that my technique was really, really improving. But I noticed that like my will to even want to pick up the guitar was like really draining, you know? But if I went the other side of the pendulum where it was just like pick up the guitar and just kind of do whatever I feel like,

Jesse Paliotto (34:04)
Really?

Mmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (34:28)
That would last for like 20, 25 minutes, even back then. Now it's worse because we have notifications that come through. But you know, back then it was really hard. And so I realized I'm going to have to figure out a way that's like not so structured that it kills the will to play that has freedom, but also doesn't go the other side where it's spontaneity. And like I'm putting my guitar down after 15 or 10 minutes sometimes like, I guess I'm done for the day, you know.

Jesse Paliotto (34:34)
Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (34:55)
So I just, have this kind of like hybrid thing that I've developed. I really loved the approach from Jack Grassl. He was a jazz guitar teacher and player. He put out these books. One of my real forming guitar teachers was a guy named Don Ross. Sorry, Don Reese. Don Ross was also, you know, a hero of mine and still is, but Don Reese, he was like a classical and jazz professor. He introduced me to Jack Grassl and anyway.

Jesse Paliotto (35:17)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (35:23)
Jack Russell's approach was don't spend more than 15, sometimes if 20 if you need to, on any one task. Keep things moving quickly. And so I started this process, so I call it structured spontaneity where I don't have my whiteboard up at the moment, I have a mental checklist, but I usually recommend, and what I used to do is have a whiteboard and just a master list of all the things that I want to work on. The stuff where it's like, you know,

Jesse Paliotto (35:49)
Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (35:52)
I want to figure out how to do solo guitar versions of Jacob Collier harmonies, you know? That would be cool. So put that as a task that I would love, or working on Alan Holdsworth chords, or I have to prep for this recording coming up, or tour. Like, everything that I would want to get done that if at the end of the year I look back, I'm like, if I did this, I would feel pretty good, you know? And you can be ambitious, and I think that's OK.

Jesse Paliotto (35:58)
Great.

Trevor Gordon Hall (36:21)
And so I put all of those up and that's sort of like the buffet menu. And then each day when I sit down, I look at how much time that I have. And then I just plan like usually I never, I don't spend more than five minutes on any one technical exercise, but I only do maybe three technical exercises a day. So I have a couple of things that sort of get me reacquainted. And then I usually schedule like 10, 15, if it's like a really dense thing, I'm trying to tackle 20 minutes. But then if I have an hour,

then that's it, I just write down based on the list of what I want to work on that day. Keeps things feeling fresh, because maybe I'm burned out on that thing I did yesterday, but today I feel like hopping into it again. And so it's sort of spreading out and working on multiple things at one time so that, you know, it might feel like you're not making progress, but in three, six, nine months, a year, you've built a huge part, you've made progress on a lot of fronts. Whereas the other approach where some people are like,

Jesse Paliotto (37:00)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (37:20)
play project A and do nothing but A until you've mastered it and then go to project B and do nothing and by the time you get to C, A is fuzzy or gone and B is starting to lose. So I'm a big proponent of working on a lot of things and keeping the will ignited and that being exciting. I can spend an hour on trying to solve this problem right now or I can do 20 minute increments three times in the week.

Jesse Paliotto (37:21)
Yeah. Right.

Trevor Gordon Hall (37:46)
and spread out, I've solved more problems subconsciously and I come back refreshed and that one hour is spent much, much better, you know? So that's what I call a structured spontaneity. And sometimes if I go, right now I'm in kind of like swinging a little bit more spontaneous. I'm exploring some new things because I'm rebuilding my pedalboard and my gear. And so I'm trying the songs that I'm playing. I have some dates in Portugal coming up. So I'm...

Jesse Paliotto (37:51)
Yes.

Trevor Gordon Hall (38:12)
prepping for that but trying to be a little bit more spontaneous and then I know when I come back here's the new songs that I want to work on and just allow yourself like hopefully this paradigm can work this image can work for people of all different personality temperaments it's not all one or the other and recognizing that being a spontaneous person is not the antithesis of discipline you know I've had a really rough relationship with that word discipline because I always thought it was like

Jesse Paliotto (38:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (38:40)
Against your will you have earned your black belt and have done this thing, you know Whereas I think discipline is much more of a how do I really just prioritize? Prioritize towards the things that I love So at the end of the day you will make disciplined decisions, but it's different It's here's what I love and how can I optimize that better as opposed to well I know I have to wake up and it's got to hurt and I got to do 100 push-ups in the rain so to speak and eat my musical vegetables and practice all these things I hate

Jesse Paliotto (38:41)
Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (39:10)
I just, even if that's better, maybe in an educational setting, at a university setting or whatever, I just think that overall to have a lifelong fulfilling relationship with music, you really have to tend the will to play. And this is the way that I found that I get to do that. Does that make sense?

Jesse Paliotto (39:27)
totally. Yeah, I think there's like discipline in the sense that this is about me choosing what I really want to achieve over a temporary distraction is like a good framing. Yeah, becomes discipline is just doing something you hate so that you can say, look at I've got the scars. Like that's lame. And that doesn't get you anywhere.

Trevor Gordon Hall (39:45)
It's so lame. And so much music

education can get down that path. And I meet some people who have been in, you know, and I've taught at a university for years, so I was in the thick of it too. And just recognizing what gets put on students and all of these things. I think it's really important going to school for music. You really do have to have a rigorous experience. But some people I would meet and then just other university professors or people I would talk to, it's like, man, I remember one guy who was like, I I loved Zeppelin.

and somebody said you should go to school for guitar but all they had was this specific tradition of classical guitar at the time and so bachelor's master's degree and significant work later it was like i don't know at what point i lost the passion but it's certainly gone and so that's really important to tend to that and Michael Hedges is just a you know he's just sort of the the god of the gurus and in the tradition and in so many ways technically but philosophically and

Jesse Paliotto (40:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (40:43)
He was somebody who was like used the university setting to sort of explore his interests but not feel like he has to be stuck in this is what I need to do now. was like those were, he called himself a hunter gatherer. He was like trying to gather all these things into his own thing. And Kenny Werner says in Effortless Mastery, know, like the reason why Miles Davis is so great is because he didn't play in any other style but his own.

Jesse Paliotto (41:09)
huh. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (41:09)
And so don't compare

yourself to somebody else, but see what you can take and integrate into your own thing. And don't feel like, gosh, I watched John Mayer does this unbelievable, you know, him in Dead and Company, you know, now I have to do this whole thing. It's like, no, like allow other people's paths, enjoy what they are for them, see what you can integrate, but don't feel like now you have a new thing to get to the bottom of and master. When I get back into this kind of structured spontaneity,

There's things I want to discover and explore, but I just throw it into the mix of the things I work on and I don't feel the pressure to have to master this next new thing. I'm just chipping away at the things that I know are part of my path and that feels better. You could sleep better and you can watch Full House at night with your family with no guilt, you know?

Jesse Paliotto (41:56)
The university thing, the thing that strikes me there is like you got to be able to tell a difference as a student. Does this feel like discipline because I don't like this class, but it will get me two semesters from now, four semesters now to the place I want to be. So yeah, you just deal with it. You learn the whatever it is, diatonic harmony class, even though you only want to play that one, but you know it's getting, the difference would be if you're like, I don't like where it's taking me.

Trevor Gordon Hall (42:22)
Right.

Jesse Paliotto (42:23)
I don't want to end up as whatever the end of this program is. And so it really is not getting me where that's when you can you can bear it when you know it's getting you where you want to be. But when it's not then that then you lose it. Let's certainly. Yeah it's long term goals I guess is really what's on my mind like if you have a vision and the problem with.

Trevor Gordon Hall (42:31)
Yep.

That's a really good point, yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (42:43)
Not the problem, but the gap with kids, and I suppose for myself, it definitely extended into university, is my horizon of foresight was very limited. So like, of course, as like a seven year old, you're like, why can't I do this, dad? And you're like, because if you do that, you're going to fall off the cliff. And then you get into university, you're like, why do I have to take this class? And hopefully there's a professor or somebody there that's like, because if you do this, when you're trying to do this thing, three years from now, you're going be able to do it.

Trevor Gordon Hall (43:04)
Yes.

Jesse Paliotto (43:07)
And that may be the gap. The other gap may be, like, no, I see where you're talking about, Professor. I just don't want to do that in three years.

Trevor Gordon Hall (43:13)
Yeah,

I think a good thing, just to really reinforce that point too, I think it's a really good point and also with that really understanding what are our own motivations and intentions because why we don't like a certain thing may be because, you know, like Steven Pressfield, the resistance. Like it's very sneaky that you know this is what you should do but you hate it. I mean, I think growing as a person really is not.

Jesse Paliotto (43:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (43:37)
not aligning your life around what's comfortable. Like you really do have to throw yourself into unknown and uncomfortable situations. But yes, analyzing is this a path I want to go down or is what I'm feeling resistance and a sneaky way for me to avoid what I know I should do. And that's something to keep in touch with because we all will make excuses to not practice things that we should. And in the moment, I may not like it, but

Jesse Paliotto (43:59)
Totally.

Trevor Gordon Hall (44:03)
I know when I'm disciplined with it or when I show up with it enough times that it does have a payoff. Analyze how easy it is to convince ourselves to get out of the work we know we need to do, but know that there's a fuzzy line between it really isn't right for you or this is exactly what you know you should do, right?

Jesse Paliotto (44:21)
Yeah, I feel like so much of my own growth comes when I'm willing to commit to a goal that's beyond what I'm comfortable with. So sign up for half marathon, commit to the concert, sign up for eight weeks of lessons, whatever it is, and you prepay them, and you're like, I'm in it, I can't get out. And it's gonna force me past the Stephen Pressfield resistance.

Trevor Gordon Hall (44:31)
Hmm.

Yeah, can't get out.

Jesse Paliotto (44:49)
to a point where I can at least look back and be like, did that suck as bad as I thought it did at the time? And a lot of times it didn't. You're like, actually no, I'm super glad. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it sucked at the moment, but I'm so glad I'm here. And then you can tell. But for myself, I can get lost in the...

Trevor Gordon Hall (44:56)
Why did I whine so much? Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (45:06)
the resistance thing and setting those like goals that I can't get out of is really useful to me. I think it would be for a lot of musicians, know, it's, it may be some of what's lost a little bit with solely online interactions. They don't have that pressure. I feel like even the weekly pressure of showing up to a guitar lesson back in the day was like, you got to.

Trevor Gordon Hall (45:22)
Yeah.

You gotta get it done,

right? Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (45:27)
Yeah,

and you're not gonna wanna practice this for the next seven days, but you're gonna do it, because you don't wanna show up look like an idiot. And that gets you past some of the resistance. I wanted to ask with the, when you were doing the practice and you had the whiteboard with the different things, you mentioned colliers, harmonies, or.

Trevor Gordon Hall (45:33)
Totally.

Totally. Yep. Totally agree.

Jesse Paliotto (45:49)
Is it somebody else, Alan Holdsworth chords? Are you consciously like, I know I wanna use those in songwriting and so I'm trying to build my tool set and you feel like this deadline, like I gotta figure it out, cause I wanna do an album by the end of the year. Or is it, or do you not even think about that?

Trevor Gordon Hall (45:52)
Mm-hmm.

I just love to play. Michael Hedges used to say, I'm just in this to get high. He just loves the feeling of what you get when you investigate a new idea. And so for me, it's like I remember my teacher in high school and then into a little bit in college, Don Reese. He would have me listening to A Love Supreme and then we were doing Bach, but then also listening to Holdsworth. And it was like,

Jesse Paliotto (46:10)
Hahaha!

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (46:31)
and there was these interesting things that I just loved and I wanted to investigate. those are all usually those are a long list of things that I'm like genuinely curious about. But I know that I am not going to like, know, and I've done like reharmonization of giant steps and arpeggio exercises all out of all of that. And not because I'll ever have that for a project, but just because I'm like, this is interesting to me, you know. I remember I was in.

Jesse Paliotto (46:42)
Yeah.

You know, like, no, it'll

end up, but there isn't some explicit goal. Like, I'm trying to write a giant steps tune. And so I'm going to put that on my board.

Trevor Gordon Hall (47:04)
Yeah, but I may

not know where it will end up and maybe it doesn't anywhere. So I went to school for philosophy and theology. That was kind of my area. And I remember in one of the philosophy courses there was this dense idea that the professor was talking about and one of the students was like, what do I do with this? I don't know what to do with this. And I remember he said something so interesting that still sticks with me. He just looked at him and he's like, just enjoy the idea. You know?

Jesse Paliotto (47:07)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (47:33)
Now, obviously, philosophy can get derailed for centuries on the definition of one word in German. It's easy to get all crazy, but I feel like that really instilled something in those forming years of when I'm interested in something, I really want to enjoy the idea. And the back end of that is when I'm exploring, when I'm playing, when I'm getting high on these ideas, when I'm chasing the chills, I'm sort of dumping all of this stuff into a well.

Jesse Paliotto (47:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (48:03)
And then when it comes time for composition, it's like, have new things to draw from. Does that make sense? So I don't necessarily do it for that. However, like I think it just at the end of the day, it's like, wow, that chord or the way this reverb strikes, you know, I'm really into experimenting with different reverbs and how those feel with certain chords and the tension of a minor second and how that can be, if you have two or three layers of delay and reverb, how that tension, you know,

Jesse Paliotto (48:07)
Yeah, totally.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (48:30)
That stuff

can get technical quick, at the end of the day, I'm like, I just, it just feels good when I, when I do it. So that's what I lean into. And I feel like that's, that's something that's important to, to guard, you know, and to, to, to keep, keep alive.

Jesse Paliotto (48:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I want to turn a sharp corner and ask about AI for a second,

I'm curious what you think about this. I'll just give you my two cents really quick just to give you time to think about.

what you may want to chat about it. for me, feels like music has sort of dodged the bullet a little bit so far on AI crashing into our space. I like if you're a digital artist or if you're a blogger or something, like AI has already taken over your world, musicians are kind of over on the side like, is this going to kill us or what? But I'm curious, what's your take on it? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it ugly? What's going on?

Trevor Gordon Hall (49:21)
It's all of those things.

Again, just as a curious person, I just have completely immersed myself into the tech. I just last week finished my seventh professional certificate in AI. Because I'm really interested in the creative collaboration with the tech. And I have experienced a lot of really amazing, like, when you know how to prompt. And so I wanted to.

Jesse Paliotto (49:35)
Nice.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (49:48)
You know, what's interesting about building, you know, agents and apps and things that are helpful and useful is if you have the knowledge of what you're looking for in the logic and flow of it, but you don't have the coding language. Well, now you're in a situation where it's like, you know, I'm studying for a PMP project management certification. And so, you know, just this week, I, you know, I built an agent that's, that has trained, trained the data specifically on the materials that will be used.

Jesse Paliotto (50:01)
Yes.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (50:18)
and then what's the tone and what's the style that I want for my practice exams to look like. So it's kind of like, don't know any of the Python code that goes behind all of this, but it's still a car. I don't need to know how the combustion engine works. It's helpful, but I know where I want to go with the car when I need to get to the grocery store so I can creatively do things. So I'm interested in what is the creative aspect of the tech.

really immersed in all of that and interested in how the eight like generative AI versus agentic AI and how that can be helpful and useful. Now having said that, it can, I've already seen how it's like obviously going to be amazingly disruptive to the arts. And someone said recently something I thought was interesting. think it was, it was Emily White. She's like a manager and writes books on, you know, the music industry.

And she said something like, we're getting into a situation now where we're going to have like the Amazon basics version of music. You know, when you go on like Amazon basics, it's like, I want a sweatshirt, but I don't need Adidas sweatshirt. What is the Amazon basics cheap version of that just for now? And so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's like a, sort of like usefulness of that. And maybe AI generated music will sort of do that. Now that is robbing.

Jesse Paliotto (51:24)
Mmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Ten bucks. It's kind of credit quality, but it'll get me through a couple of weeks. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (51:45)
what would be royalties that could go to an actual artist. So that's a problem. now that Spotify, there was a book that came out recently just covering all of the ghost artists and how fake artists but also AI-driven things are just booting all of these artists off these major platforms. That's a problem. It's a massive problem. But I still think that there's something, and I don't know what it is yet.

Jesse Paliotto (51:51)
Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (52:16)
I know I can see all of this coming, but I can stand on the shores and scream that next wave better not come in, it better not come in, and then it washes over you, but the next one better not come in. If this is the new water that we swim in, I don't want to completely resist against the currents. I don't want to completely go with it, but I want to creatively maneuver in it. And so to me, I'm in the process of building a documentary and a mini-series for

Jesse Paliotto (52:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (52:46)
a project and so using the AI tools to really help refine ideas and use it as a creative collaboration and what would be the color scheme of this emotional thing and how should the shots look for this? It's kind of like having a subject matter expert to debate with you and if you know how to creatively prompt with it and personalize it so it knows a certain way of language that I find

really helpful as opposed to just spitting out generalized data. so all that to say, I see the disruption is massive, but I see an interesting opportunity to be creative with it because it's still a predictive technology. It's not a creative technology, even though generative AI does generate new things based on the data that it's trying to predict and be useful and helpful. So I want to figure out what are those ways.

Jesse Paliotto (53:36)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (53:44)
to be helpful in that. is, there's this artist on Spotify that's like, just like, exemplifies how sort of stupid and funny the AI music scene is and will become. That's probably going to get better, but at least for now it's called Caveman Country. And it's just like country songs, like all the cliches of a country song, but sung by this like caveman who just wants a new club, you know, to, to

Jesse Paliotto (53:57)
Okay.

Okay.

Trevor Gordon Hall (54:13)
to hunt, you know, it just, yeah, there was one that was called Baby Got Club and there was another called like Me Drink Beer and so it's funny, you know, and so I actually, so all that to say like, think and I hope that there, when you see an AI generated ad or a post on, you know, social media, we know, we can tell they're getting better, but there's still a look, thing, feel to it. I, I,

wonder if they'll be the Amazon basics of artwork and of music and it's like yes, maybe they play the AI station at the dentist office, you know, okay, that sucks, but some of those radio stations weren't paying real artists anyway, so maybe there's not a loss there, but also maybe this creates a real genuine need for the human.

Jesse Paliotto (54:46)
Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (55:04)
driving this technology and so maybe there's more innovation on the horizon. So I'm open. I don't have the answers to those. I'm continually asking those questions, but like I'm just soaking up all the knowledge that I can because I find it fascinating and it just feels like a groundbreaking moment in tech that if I snooze on this, I will miss out on some really interesting creative things I will not have had otherwise, you

if you read like the, when every, gosh, when the player piano came out, like I saw this, this article once that was like, when the player piano came out, it was like in the New York times or, know, whatever the major publication was back then. And it it read as if it was right now, like this is going to be disre, yeah, the death of music and all of that. And so yes, it is. mean, like to be, to be a, a professional type typewriterist on the edge of the computer boom, like, yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (55:39)
Right, right.

death of music.

Trevor Gordon Hall (56:03)
That is disruptive. But are there things that you can channel into this new tech that has obviously immersed for good and bad? know, the way that human progress has always worked is that our capacity for good is always neck and neck with our capacity for destruction. know, science gives us medicine, penicillin, and gives us nuclear weapons, you know, and so there's always this neck and neck. that is a fundamental tension that feels most raw at the beginning of an emerging field. But

That's the way this always has worked in human history. I know that the stakes are higher than ever with this tech and so I'm less comfortable with the automation of AI and really want to be on the collaboration with it, but that's where I'm at right now.

Jesse Paliotto (56:48)
that you're going full Spider-Man on me with great power comes great responsibility. Yeah, that I mean, a couple things while you were talking were coming to mind. One was, I feel like use cases for music, which is maybe a weird phrase, but the idea like the idea, the reason there's an Amazon basics is that there is a category of customers who don't have the money or don't want to spend the money on the

Trevor Gordon Hall (56:50)
That's right, that's right. Absolutely.

Jesse Paliotto (57:10)
expensive garment, they don't need it to last a super long time. And it fills a need. There is a need for music. That's why there was music. There was people making bad music for elevators in the 50s, which is where it came from or whatever. Maybe I got the 50s wrong, but basically, so like there was this consumption, but there's this need that AI doesn't fill. There's a use case for music in live environment for

Trevor Gordon Hall (57:13)
Right. Yep.

Right.

Right, right.

Jesse Paliotto (57:31)
interaction and I think that's where it gets really hard for musicians to express their value. And I think this is a challenge that probably the music industry in general needs to do better at is we all know concerts are awesome. Otherwise, why would people pay what they pay for Taylor Swift concerts, right? They know they want to be there. There's some value, but as soon as you start to talk about it in black and white, you're like,

Trevor Gordon Hall (57:45)
Right, right.

Jesse Paliotto (57:51)
Yeah, I guess it's not, it doesn't, there's nothing there. It's intangible. It's valueless. You're no, it's not value. You just paid $1,500 for tickets. There is value in the human connection of music. so figuring out how to talk about that in ways that answer back to these business cases for Spotify using AI for record companies saying we're going to source, you know, from different places. Like, how do I respond to that in ways that an executive record executive can understand or whoever the parties are?

Trevor Gordon Hall (57:59)
Totally.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Paliotto (58:21)
that need to understand. I don't if that makes sense.

Trevor Gordon Hall (58:23)
Totally, totally. think it has to be an open... With this tech, there will be people who will just try to monopolize a market and try to profit at all costs. Like, that's just the way it works. There needs to be a new growth market for everyone to raise money and throw money at and disrupts others. But I would just encourage, you know, you or anybody listening to this, one way that I thought was helpful was I was building this agent. I need to get back to it. But, you know, I've done...

15, 16 albums at this point, and sometimes the energy level of each piece, the tuning of the piece, what guitar I'm using, I get stuck playing a very small section of those tunes. And so part of my idea was building this tool where you could sort of input all the data points from what is the next local tuning and does it match the energy flow and like, you know, give all the data of what a good...

Jesse Paliotto (59:14)
Mm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (59:17)
concert set list feels like, you know, there's a whole arc to it. And then, and then, okay, then, and then at the end of the day, I am heading into, you know, and I have, I have 70 minutes or I have 30 minutes, like build me a set, and it will, and it will craft something that's interesting, and it keeps you interested in your own material. And it's calculating all of these different things from energy level, like all what are the data points?

Jesse Paliotto (59:19)
Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (59:42)
That's a way that is using technology to creatively make a very human experience for other people. I know they're using AI in calculating all of the different changes in, you know, a Taylor Swift show. you know, so there is this immersive element that you can use this technology for it. So I guess I would just, I would just kind of like say like, what are those? That's a hyper, hyper specific way to use that tech in fingerstyle guitar, but yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (59:48)
Yeah.

No, that's fascinating. I've never heard anybody say that. Yeah, that's

super. The other thought that came to me, or another thought that came to me was, I don't know, there's Peter Thiel, who I know is a controversial figure, but he's got a book called Zero to One, which the basic premise of it is simply, it's not complicated, but of course he makes a whole book out of it, which is that there's innovation, which is iterative. So, I make a better mousetrap.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:00:16)
Yep.

Jesse Paliotto (1:00:32)
And there is innovation that is a whole different state of affairs, a zero to one. You're not just going zero to 0.1. You're into a whole new, iPhone was like the classic example in the last 25 years of something like that never existed. It changed the world. This was a zero to one innovation moment. And AI feels like it fuels those iterations, not so much the zero to ones. So if I'm an artist, like what you're describing is like,

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:00:44)
Totally.

Mmm.

Jesse Paliotto (1:00:56)
I don't need you to totally reinvent what a concert is. I just want to optimize my order flow for a 70 minute concert based on a certain repertoire. Like that feels like where you use that sort of tool.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:01:05)
right.

Totally.

And that's an example of like, are there other opportunities, even just like stupid things like here's a picture of what I have in my refrigerator, what could I make for dinner tonight, you know? That helps. When I first started getting into AI, my first experimentation with it was I would sit with my daughter and we would do bedtime stories. Pick a character, what's the animal, and make a bedtime story, you know? And so like...

There's fun things that actually that was fun. And that was a, you know, a genuine human connection. So my hope is that AI will, the more advanced it gets, will find new ways to have a fun experience. know, like with this taking, I don't know, we just watched, I went through all the Back to the Future series, you know, over Christmas break again. I love going through those. And it's like when they have the hover boards, that's what 2015 in the movie.

Jesse Paliotto (1:01:52)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:01:59)
You know, and in 2025, we still don't have, I guess we do, you know, some, not, you know, not easily accessible. So I feel like the innovation of this tech, we still will always have the human dilemma along with it, which is also the human capacity for, you know, potential as well and creativity and inspiration. So I just choose to believe that even if it's a delusion, I just choose to believe that that is the way that this will unfold.

Jesse Paliotto (1:02:02)
Yeah.

I like that.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:02:27)
There will be extremely scary things along the way, obviously, but that gets my position at this point.

Jesse Paliotto (1:02:34)
Yeah, know, one idea now, you're making all the neurons fire now. I would love to do, so one of the things I get drowned in is like production stuff, but like, could you create an agent or an instance that's got access to like, I want all the user manuals for all the plugins I have. Tell me.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:02:43)
Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (1:02:51)
What is the chain and the settings to achieve the sound from this? I want to sound like, you know, Trevor's album. How do I get that reverb sound with using what I have? Give me some recommendations. Like that would be useful. Especially for someone like me who's not a total production nerd.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:02:56)
Yep.

Yep. Yep.

And you

can even train the data that like, if you don't know this, say you don't know, don't just invent it because all these models are, they can hallucinate because their core value is helpfulness, right? And to be helpful, well, I need to output something. But interestingly, I was experimenting with just two weeks ago, like you can input all the data that this is your knowledge base and then send that to an agent.

Jesse Paliotto (1:03:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:03:36)
that there's another agent that is meant to doubt everything you say and that interacts with that agent and then it spits back into you a refined output. And so there's more trustworthiness built into it. And so then you will be able to like have a panel of subject matter experts that are like, I want a complete master of reverb and I want a complete master of all of these user manuals. And then you can build trustworthiness into, you know,

Jesse Paliotto (1:03:43)
Mm-hmm.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:04:04)
when you're producing something, you're like, want this to sound exactly like this record, what's actually happening there and don't make it up. And it will have its own committee. It will have its own committee refining it for you. That's so cool. that's, again, that is shortening the distance between the inspiration and the incarnation of it, the actually fleshing it out and that gap.

Jesse Paliotto (1:04:12)
Dopey.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:04:31)
It doesn't diminish it. That actually allows you to keep the creative flow going. So that's a really cool way to implement using the tools.

Jesse Paliotto (1:04:37)
Yeah.

All right. have to, know we're over a few minutes, so we probably do. No, I'm good. I'm loving it. I thought that this is a really good thing for me to ask about something. I did not know what it was. It was in the email thread. had reverb stacking since we just wandered into the area of production and plugins and the word reverb. Can you give like a very nerdy quick hit on what is reverb stacking? Why are you excited about that right now?

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:04:41)
Yeah, sorry, I get yapping about this stuff, you know.

Yes.

Sure.

Absolutely. So one of my one of my dear friends in life, and he's the guy does mixing and mastering is a guy named Corin Nelson. And he, he used to work at imaginary road studios with Will Ackerman. And so he's very well versed in the the Windham Hill scene, and then acoustic music. And he I mean, he's done every absolutely everything. And a really fascinating thing, it's called it now Nelsonics. So Nelson Sonics. And he has this approach where

Jesse Paliotto (1:05:16)
Okay.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:05:29)
I think he was one of the real early pioneers in this and did it very early on, but it was very, very utilized. You can hear this a lot in his Grammy is with Will Ackerman's returning record. And I just, I remember being at Barnes and Noble as when that came out in college and loving the sound of that record, the production sound. And this is one of those things that all of the Wyndham Hill aesthetic had.

what I would call massively intimate. You felt like you were right there, but also it had this really sonorous space as well. And it's not just throwing a wet on top of something. part of it, and he has his own obviously secret sauce the way he does this, but I've really learned how to sort of put that into my own live setup where, and more recently I've experimented with even more versions of this, but if you have kind of like a short reverb,

Jesse Paliotto (1:06:00)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:06:26)
let's say like a room reverb on your signal and then place that into a much longer hall decay and then place that into a much bigger one and you can dial in what the send of each of those will be and the decay of those reverbs will trigger some of the other reverbs and so that wasn't a huge innovation but now like some people, a lot of reverbs, that's how they're built like

you'll hear them as those stacking. But if I customize them, like I have a, I'm using the neural DSP quad cortex, what I'm experimenting with now is actually taking like a room reverb that is mono and then sending that room reverb into like a cave reverb. And so now I have up to almost six layers that I can mix and match at will. So if I want one chord, I can like really get my,

my huge, you know, star trails decay, or if I want like a grand hall or like a Mount Everest for just one note, I can turn it on and then as that's decaying, I immediately turn it off. So I'm playing with the reverb as almost another instrument. So I can...

Jesse Paliotto (1:07:41)
Are you doing that in real

time at a show or are you talking about it in production? Okay.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:07:44)
Both, both.

So I worked out a process where Corin and I, when doing our records, we would do this process and I would literally be next to the monitor and sort of like conduct, like the reverb tail should go this way and then bring it back down. And so now I'm doing that live. So I have six layers of reverb to adjust based on how the emotional, you know, cause reverb is a very emotional field driven thing. So there is a technical aspect to it, but.

Jesse Paliotto (1:07:55)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:08:09)
I've been stacking like delays, a mono and a stereo delay with different times and that sending that into the reverbs. And so when you need a chord to ring out, that's very rich and then harmonizing as that's decaying, there's this whole new way of playing. And so that's kind of a real celebration of like the contemporary fingerstyle scene is this embrace of technology with the acoustic. And my gosh, I'm so excited about that. So that would be the beginning of my

Jesse Paliotto (1:08:15)
Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:08:38)
nerddom into the reverb stacking is just how does it react and can you can you manipulate it in a way that still serves the composition and enhances it that's what I'm excited about

Jesse Paliotto (1:08:52)
Is there anywhere that anybody could go online and hear you doing that right now, or is this still in development? We'll see it down the line at the concert or on every show.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:08:59)
Every show I've been doing.

Yeah, every show. I would say like I did a lot of this. Every record I've done with Cora Nelson, we use this a lot. The very first record I did with him was called This Beautiful Chaos. It's all over that record. And then I did the Triplicity, that's the trio with Andy and Callum, and we did a lot. There are times that like Andy's guitar will be a mono reverb and Callum and I are a stereo reverb.

Jesse Paliotto (1:09:12)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:09:27)
and how that interacts in the stereo field with what we're playing. And then that is also going into a mastering, you know, kind of like umbrella reverb and the depth of space that you get from that. Again, it's back to this massively intimate and Cory is just a master of that. And so I'm just trying to like figure out how to do that live. But then the nylon string project that's called light through colored glass that uses the same thing. And then we just did a

Jesse Paliotto (1:09:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:09:55)
I did a live PBS special that we recorded. Corin was on that and that just came out live from the Strand Theater that came out in December. And you can hear me doing that live. There are times when a reverb will decay. So that's in action or at any show. I do it, you know, pretty extensively too. So.

Jesse Paliotto (1:10:14)
That's cool.

I'm gonna go check that out. I'll try and find some links to drop in the show notes, because it's always fascinating to me to like, because we can so abstract musical stuff and then like, you just want to hear like show like.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:10:24)
Totally. You just want to hear, right, exactly, exactly.

What does it actually sound like? Cause you can get lost in the nerddom of it, but like, is there actually an emotional payoff or is it just a rabbit hole? Exactly. Yeah.

Jesse Paliotto (1:10:33)
Right. Are you just nerding out for nerd's sake or what? Yeah.

That's awesome. We should probably wrap up. I'm so appreciative of you going over time quite a bit here. Anything that you didn't get to mention or any thoughts you had hanging out there that you want to squeeze in here before we wrap up?

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:10:51)
No, man, I really appreciate talking to you and I know this is a good resource for folks and it's really nice how this is evergreen content. Someone will listen to this in whatever format in 10, 20 years and hopefully get something from it. But I guess I would just want to encourage all the musicians out there. There's a lot of doom politically. There's a lot of doom with tech. There's a lot of doom with the music industry. But don't ever let all of that cloud.

You know, don't let that be the space between you and your instrument. Like, really, really cherish that time. Stay connected to why an E minor sounds good, even though you learned it so many years ago. Like, stay connected to why you do that, and that's what will get all of us through. So I just want to leave on that. That's something I need to remind myself of routinely. So I'm in the same boat.

Jesse Paliotto (1:11:41)
Yeah, I love that.

So easy to get lost in all the doom, like you said. For folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to do that? To connect online or where should people go if they want to hear more from Trevor?

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:11:45)
Yep. Yep.

Yep,

so there is a Trevor Hall. I'm Trevor Gordon Hall. just so you know, because I used to get all these phone calls from high school friends saying, dude, you're on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. Different guy. So Trevor Gordon Hall, can find that on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, all of the usual spots. But I love interacting with folks. Certain platforms, I don't respond to the DMs quite as often, but I'm always up for a personal email.

Jesse Paliotto (1:11:59)
Okay. Okay.

You

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:12:24)
But I do have these courses on Truefire. I also do kind of like independent composition coaching as well as lessons as well. if you have a question, any of those are really an easy way to... Most artists run all of their own platforms anyway these days, so any of them they'll get to me.

Jesse Paliotto (1:12:43)
Yeah.

I'll make sure link that stuff in the show notes, make sure we got that there. Cause and also we didn't get to talk about it, but definitely the courses where people can, which is probably a very easy entry level to kind of interact with some of your teaching on a true fire jam play. So I'll throw this in there. Well, thank you, Trevor so much. Thanks everybody for joining us. I'm your host, Jesse Pagliato. I love being able to hang out and do what Trevor and I got to do for the last hour and 20 minutes and just talk about music and how to make it and the value in our life.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:12:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So fun

Jesse Paliotto (1:13:13)
Hope you all have a great week and we will catch you next time. Thanks everybody.

Trevor Gordon Hall (1:13:17)
Thank you.

EP 9: Trevor Gordon Hall on Structured Spontaneity, Collaboration, & AI's Creative Role

EP 9: Trevor Gordon Hall on Structured Spontaneity, Collaboration, & AI's Creative RoleEP 9: Trevor Gordon Hall on Structured Spontaneity, Collaboration, & AI's Creative Role

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EP 9: Trevor Gordon Hall on Structured Spontaneity, Collaboration, & AI's Creative Role

EP 9: Trevor Gordon Hall on Structured Spontaneity, Collaboration, & AI's Creative Role

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