“You Are Not Your Thoughts” - Meditations for Nylon String Guitar - Trevor Gordon Hall

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Recorded by Trevor Gordon Hall
Mixed and Mastered by Grammy Winning Corin Nelsen
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About the SONG:
Transitioning from steel to nylon string guitar 🎸 for this series has been a challenging endeavor. The muscle memory 🧠 I've developed on the steel string gets completely reshuffled with nylon strings, which require a different touch ✋ and produce distinct note decays 🎵. I initially wrote the riff for this song in a wacky tuning on a steel string guitar as part of an exercise 🏋️ years ago. During my morning sessions 🌅, I tuned the nylon string guitar to this tuning and tried to let the music flow 🌊. This song stands out in this current collection 📚 as the only one in non-standard tuning, a new experience for me with a nylon string guitar. Beyond the technical aspects, this song features a constant peddling back and forth 🌀 in the higher notes, with much of the changes coming from the inner voices of the chords, symbolizing the constant back and forth nature of our own minds. It was fun to add this to my “compose-a-song-in-an-hour” ⏳ creative challenge!
While getting into the headspace of attempting to write in an hour on this particular morning, I had been reflecting 🤔 on this concept of how fast our minds hop from one thought to another 💭, influenced by our surroundings or life seasons 🍂. During challenging times, it's easy to let negative inner dialogue run unchecked after being triggered or spurred on by an emotional response. I realize that in easier times, I don’t tend to take my thoughts as seriously. But when things get difficult, I can tend to feel an overwhelming responsibility for everything. It's not fair to put ourselves under such pressure 💪 because our thoughts are often just repetitive mental projections and not entirely real. Thoughts demand to be the final verdict ⚖️, but our true identity goes much deeper. It’s crucial not to live too much in our heads 🧘‍♂️, a habit I'm guilty of.
I heard in an interview with a brain scientist 🧑‍🔬 that emotions are, by definition, fleeting ⏱️. From initial stimulus to the physiological response, all in about 90 seconds altogether ⏲️. Further response after that is the choice of the experiencer to stay in the loop 🔄 or not, often decided subconsciously 🧠. Any moment can trigger these emotional responses 💥, and with those, we have a catalog of associated thoughts and narratives that pour in 📂, often feeling inevitable. With those positive or negative emotions swirling around the mental landscape 🌪️, it can spur long streams of thoughts that so often go unquestioned or unchecked. But we can, in fact, act and choose how to proceed with them 🚦. With this understanding, we have enough time to choose whether to give ourselves over to them further or not. With my daughter, we talk about "mental storms" ⛈️ and the importance of waiting for the sun 🌞 to return, a metaphor for emotional calm. During her mental storms as a kid, we have held hands 🤝, sitting together and breathing 🌬️, saying we are waiting for the sun, choosing to let the storm pass and not be caught up by it.
This act of choosing to hold on and wait for the calm 🧘‍♀️ is a practice I realized I need to adopt for myself. Thoughts and emotions are temporary 🌬️. This understanding helps me see that identity is formed over time and is more stable than any transient mental state 🌳. A good reminder for all of us to be careful how much emotional investment we put into the stream of ideas in our heads at any given moment 💭. Who we are is bigger than that 🌟. It’s important to remember that "You Are Not Your Thoughts."
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Gear Used:
Furch GN-2 Cedar Top, Walnut Back and Sides
Daddario Strings
Vanguard Audio Labs V44S Stereo Mic
SSL12 Interface
DJI OsmoPocket 3
#fingerstyletabs #fingerpicking #fingerstyleguitar #guitarlesson #relaxingguitarmusic #guitar #guitarra #acousticguitar #acoustic #fingerstyle #fingerstyleguitarist #calmguitarmusic #daddario #daddariostrings #vanguardaudiolabs #trevorgordonhall #fingerpicking

[@Schmoogis]

I had a long thing typed up, but all i really want to say is thank you.

[@TrevorGordonHall]

Aw thanks so much!! Fell free to share any time or as much as you want! Always love to hear how the music affects people. This is what it is all about

[@DariaSemikina]

Beautiful composition! It's nice to see more fingerstyle guitarists turning their attention to nylon string as well :)

[@TrevorGordonHall]

Thank you so much! There are so many amazing nylon string players out there and they inspire me endlessly to try something different for now!

[@davidaugustus]

This tune and the meaning behind it is what I really needed to hear today ❤

[@TrevorGordonHall]

So glad to hear that man!!!

[@nowlinrl]

Awesome - another great tune in this series! I am anxiously awaiting each new release every month!

[@TrevorGordonHall]

Thanks so much man!!!

[@1bagger35]

Great great job Trevor! I absolutely love the title and the meaning behind it. Absolutely brilliant.

[@TrevorGordonHall]

Thank you so much for your kind words!

[@chazcarpenter1559]

Beautifully written bro. I listen to your music daily and have been for some years now. Keep em coming 👍🏼🤟🏼

[@riverroadracing]

Thanks for the upload! 🤙

[@TrevorGordonHall]

You’re very welcome thanks for listening!!

[@fruitloopdingusdingus838]

Good morning from Montana. ✌️🎵🎶

[@TrevorGordonHall]

Good morning from Cape May today!

[@peetos-chan2835]

❤❤❤

[@TrevorGordonHall]

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@AugustParth]

Really sweet playing, Trevor!

[@TrevorGordonHall]

Thanks so much August!!

[@nofsnew]

Fire as always sir!

[@TrevorGordonHall]

I appreciate that!

[@marceldominic]

❤🎶

[@TrevorGordonHall]

🙏🏻

[@laalaa99stl]

You are not your thoughts... but other people are. The entire world exists solely in your own mind. It ceases to exist when you do.

[@1bagger35]

With respect to you, this is obviously not true. Only a narcissist or an athiest that thinks they should view the world solely through the lens of their own mind would believe such a thing. The world is WAY more than just you, and it will go on long after you. There is proof of that everywhere. Similarly, other people are not what I think they are, but what they choose to be. I have little influence over those around me. I may have access to their ear and their eye, but they ultimately choose. This is the whole point of the title of the song. On a significant level, we choose who we are. There is always a battle raging in all of us between angels and demons, if you will. Just because an idea enters your head, whether from others or from the spiritual realm, doesn't make it true. Only if you take it on as your identity is it true. The goal is to stop long enough to evaluate the thought. Many, if not most, thoughts need to be killed instantly.

[@eliotkaplan]

Very lovely composition and performance! Just wondering what you did to the bridge on your Furch nylon? The saddle seems unique. I assume this is a pickup. Woud you mind identifying it? Thanks!

[@jesussavesrick]

Love these videos; I subscribed. Are those some sort of intonation saddles of some kind you added?

[@TrevorGordonHall]

Thank you much appreciated! Yes each string has its own saddle so the intonation can be dialed in a precise as possible. My guitar tech Mike Haney came up with this idea to solve the issue. For whatever reason nylon string guitars seem so much harder to intonate than steel string but this solution did the trick!