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**Play It Like It’s Music**

Purists may whine that the best days of music are behind us, that capital “M” music has seen its peak and is no longer relevant. But here at Play It Like It’s Music we believe the opposite: not only is the act of musicmaking an essential life skill with a lineage stretching back to the beginnings of human history, but the vocation of the professional musician is more vital today than it ever has been. Once a month, join musician, songwriter and producer Trevor Exter as he drops in on working musicians from every genre.

playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com

Latest Episodes:

Cello Sunset Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

I’m about to look at a beautiful sunset here in NYC, and it was approaching a welcome 70 today. Here’s a tune for that.

In this edition:

* A little lush sound.

* A touch o writing

* A pod recommend

* A GREAT cello video (by a musician I hope you’ll already know about.)

[getting ready for some big stuff...]

When you're making music, it's so easy to get caught in the pursuit of control.

When playing, we control so many things: our timing, our tuning, our tone, our volume. We have to listen and adjust constantly, and that's just us.

God forbid we might be playing with any other people! Then there's all kinds of other stuff going on that we can’t control.

It can feel like a party or a battle, depending on the moment.

(And let's also remember that we call it "playing". So control your attitude too - can't be overserious!)

My friends all know that I love practicing technique way more than I do actual material. I get a lot of joy from training my fingers where and when to go, more than I do from writing tunes or from learning repertoire. (But we all know that’s just resistance.)

Over time it's paid off in a calm feeling of control over my cello sound, which I only realized after the fact was a coping effort to deal with the normal, chronic lack of control over sound.

The human musical condition.

There's all kinds of stuff to control (just fire up a computer and you can literally create infinite knobs) but the music, at the end of the day, wants to liberate you from that compulsion.

The only thing we can control - and only some of the time - is our level of surrender.

Let the music play you. That’s more fun.

podcast recommendation:

For the music heads out there, I highly recommend Jamie Lidell’s podcast, “Hanging Out With Audiophiles”. It’s such a great hang and he brings the fun - if you’re the type of person who loves to geek out on the creative side of sound production. There’s always a segment at the top where he picks up a wierdo sound module and messes around with it, like a narrated “tour” of esoteric pieces of gear. [Check out HOWA]

something curated:

Back to my New Orleans love, there are a few fantastic cellists making good ol’ “American” music in NOLA. Here’s a video I recently re-saw and dig the crap out of. Don’t sleep on Leyla McCalla!

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

I appreciate you. Enjoy spring!

Love your ears,

Trevor

If you appreciate my work, it’s in these other places too. Please share:

* Listen to the “Trevor Exter Playlist” on Spotify

* Hear 18 episodes of: "Play It Like It's Music"

* You can hire me to produce your podcast.

* Or get supportive: visit Patreon

* Social: IG \ TW \ FB

* trevorexter.com

Get full access to Play it Like It's Music at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe

One for Wednesday Mar 27, 2019

Show notes

In this edition:

* Some cello textures and melodies for your face. No talking today.

* A bite o writing

* A pod update and recommend

* Another amazing short video.

[2007 was a trying year, though I tried not to show it.]

Responsibility

It's a leap to take responsibility for the sound we make in this world. Can’t hide anymore.

If we make sound just for ourselves it's ok, but the implications of making it in earshot of others can scare even the most promising musician back into silence.

Because if it affects me this much when you do it, what response in you will I have to shoulder?

Duh! "It's not music that scares me, it's people!"

This realization finally turned it around for me. And my fear of people wasn’t of getting beat up or rejected (any of the usual things) but their beauty.

Your beauty.

Witnessing music alone at night with my cassette tapes, going to shows, going to church... a fire would burn right above me. It was like the sound and my soul commingling into some third, totally unpredictable and uncontrollable entity. Telling me to stay present in life. As a teenager my musical taste developed haphazardly but I could always feel this third thing, the fire doing what it wanted and warming up the room whenever there was music playing.

I was panicky at 13, but once I sat down at the piano I became action. All questions of style ceased, all genres melted and I evaporated into a cocoon of noise. All by myself.

Everything felt safe and beautiful, all responsibility ceased.

But that's the rub: responsibility.

Because the room is rarely just ours. Other people will often be in it.

I knew from my solitary listening the beauty that descends on a space when music is playing. But other people complicated and expanded this beauty.

It's not just other players: any person within earshot is adding their own fire to the experience.

All kinds of fire.

A beautiful noise is one thing. Silence is also, as they say, golden.

We all wield our ways of witnessing, consciously or not.

And we don't get to decide what is "beautiful". We can only take responsibility for our own witnessing and tend the fire of the other people in the room with our playing.

I can’t run away and hide from my own sound. Or yours.

We're all in this. I owe you some truthful moments while we're here and capital M music is the best ticket I have for that.

Responsibility is beautiful.

Hope you liked the track.

Podcast recommendation: CTZN

I’ve been working on a show that just launched their Season 2: it’s called CTZN.

* I’m the producer, I put these things together. (How about let’s talk about making yours.)

Here’s the S2 premiere, an interview with pleasure activist Adrienne Maree Brown.

I’m working on my own pod as well… it’s just taking a while.

I had a nice lunch with my friend Sean, and he said “I thought you’d just stopped making that show of yours” and I felt it.

Just to give you all a heads up, I must say that making podcast episodes (at the quality level that I like) is time-consuming. My podcast, “Play It Like It’s Music” hasn’t gone away, I’m just working on lots of stuff at once and these things get pushed to the back because they are a pleasure project for me. Please be patient, there are some great ones coming up! In the meantime, go check out some older episodes and subscribe!

something curated:

This one is crazy. Honestly, I am so not visual. I don’t know how these people do it.

I see some “non-musical” folks sometimes, and they can’t hold back their awe for someone who can and does do music. Well I feel the same way about folks who execute on their visual ideas, because when I look inside there I don’t see much.

A vid like this just tickles my eyes and brain:

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

I appreciate you. Enjoy spring.

Love your ears,

Trevor

If you appreciate my work, it’s in these other places too. Please share:

* Listen to the “Trevor Exter Playlist” on Spotify

* Hear 18 episodes of: "Play It Like It's Music"

* You can hire me to produce your podcast.

* Or get supportive: visit Patreon

* Social: IG \ TW \ FB

* trevorexter.com

Get full access to Play it Like It's Music at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe

springtime travels Mar 20, 2019

Show notes

In this edition:

* A taste of a vibe (no talking on this one)

* A bite o writing

* A video morsel

(hungry, trev?)

[I did not buy this shirt at the sample sale. Vegas can wait.]

springtime travels

I don't know about you, but I have to go places in order to find myself in music.

The music in my head just doesn't make sense to me until I bounce it off some other ears in other places.

Touring helps, once you have an invitation to go play somewhere. But before that, what do you do?

Listen to all the different records that you can.

Check this out:

My house has been weird for a while because I have a stack of records on the shelf and no record player. Thanks to New York real estate and the miracle of technology, I take out the record to look at and play it on spotify, no joke. It’s got everything except that essence.

Before, I felt freedom of movement because I had records. I still do. But while a record collection can be a burden, the phone is more of a leash than I want to admit.

That's one drag about digital. Musical objects will always be physical instruments and records.

They have a smell and a history just like you, sounds in your phone can only point at it.

I remember certain records just jumped off the shelf when I was young and getting the bug. Others didn't, but their presence gave me a sense of context, something to navigate.

* I found out I had to go to Brazil, not just dream of it.

* I found out Chinese folk music didn't really speak to me.

* I learned the history of the Beatles. Bach was to the left of them on the shelf, Brahms to the right.

I swear those Beatles records smelled different. More sweat and cigarettes on them.

And the Brazilian ones definitely had sunshine.

Time to put one on.

something curated:

Cute, gentle phobias! 2 minutes, and I really admire the sound design in this one. Try headphones:

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

I appreciate you deeply, and very much appreciate your reply/feedback/whatsups.

Love your ears,

Trevor

If you appreciate my work, it’s in these other places too. Please share:

* Listen to the “Trevor Exter Playlist” on Spotify

* Hear 18 episodes of: "Play It Like It's Music"

* You can hire me to produce your podcast.

* Or get supportive: visit Patreon

* Social: IG \ TW \ FB

* trevorexter.com

Get full access to Play it Like It's Music at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe

Truth in tension Mar 13, 2019

Show notes

In this edition:

* A narrated beat, or a beaten-up narrative? You be the judge… click play and follow the blog/script (blipt? scrog?) below.

* A very cool video

[Last year’s summertime train season]

Truth in tension

The pursuit of music reveals an essential life truth to us, over and over again: that it's impossible to stay 100% true to ourselves.

Before we manifest our music, we may hear or feel it internally. But finding a place for it to live in the world means finding other people to hear it and feel it themselves. We must somehow interface and link.

It starts with simply making the sound, but if you want to sustain it then you have to learn to navigate this gauntlet of other people.

Some call this gauntlet a market. But markets, like democracy are a fragile human ideal. Not the norm.

The norm is that our music must find a way to prevail in the face of an onslaught of predators and parasites, both within and without. Self-sabotage and shady business dealers are equally destructive to our sound and to our soundness.

But without our sound we are nothing. So we must go through.

Through the fear, through the cacophony, through the swindles, through the compromise, the forgetting and the loss.

We must then resuscitate the sound, for it is us. Protect and nurture it so it can live, even if nobody but us wants to hear it or pay for it.

After decades of trying to quit, failing to quit, trying to "succeed" and losing my direction again and again, I often feel like my sound is both the source of my sanity and its worst threat.

100% tension.

The only way to be cool with that is to just choose to be cool with it.

Because I also know how much lonelier it can get when I'm far from my sound. That's no way to live.

I know this: the music business will not always be there for you, but the Music will.

Good thing it's the one you need.

Your music loves you, so let it.

something curated:

Just came across this brilliant one-minute animation. MUCH momentum, SO inertia!

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

I appreciate you more than you know, and thanks again for all your lovely replies.

Your feedback is always welcome, especially some good ol’ informed criticism! Otherwise I’m writing in a vacuum…

Love your ears,

Trevor

If you appreciate my work, it’s in these other places too. Please share:

* Listen to the “Trevor Exter Playlist” on Spotify

* Hear 18 episodes of: "Play It Like It's Music"

* You can hire me to produce your podcast.

* Or get supportive: visit Patreon

* Social: IG \ TW \ FB

* trevorexter.com

Get full access to Play it Like It's Music at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe

Changes (a non-narrated musical post) Mar 06, 2019

Show notes

Just music this time, couldn’t get my narration together today. Here’s the vibe from home this week. [click play]

In this edition:

* a bit of a track for you [see above]

* a bit of writing for you

* a beautiful performance I just watched

[Paris circa 2010]

Changes

We are not all so strongly affected by music. But for those of us who are, it's scary to admit the power it has to change us.

Besides the bag of tastes we picked up between the ages of 14-17 - the window when our musical tastes solidified whether we like it or not - the input of new sounds at opportune moments can transform us completely.

A list that can go on forever: How music changed me.

I was forever changed after I heard Piazzolla. Jeff Buckley invited me back from exile. Coltrane showed me limitlessness and the need for humility.

Chuck Berry changed just about everyone, but Henry Threadgill changed me.

João Gilberto changed a bunch of folks too, and without him there might not have ever been Tool.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor changed me.

Bruce Springsteen mostly just changes himself, but manages to bring everybody along for the ride.

There is so much power in music, and a scary responsibility comes with it.

I'm scared out of my mind each time I pick up the instrument. I have to get over some real musical vertigo before doing any work, and a lot of the time it overtakes me anyway.

I've chosen this, I'm responsible. But it doesn't get any less scary. I'm not intimidated so much as awed by the mastery which came before and surrounds us. I still have my own sound to make.

But I'd better make it right, play for keeps because someone might hear it. And what change in them do I want to puy my name on?

It takes work to to make a true sound. You don't get to choose how it lands.

But we're still responsible.

something curated:

I got a real kick out of this subway performance by Alan Cumming and musicians. Special props to Eleanor Norton, the fantastic cellist featured here:

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

I appreciate you more than you know, and thanks again for all your lovely replies.

I’m starting to feel happy with where things are going for me sonically. Feedback is always welcome here.

Love your ears,

Trevor

If you appreciate my work, it’s in these other places too:

* Check out the “Trevor Exter Playlist” on Spotify

* Hear 18 episodes of: "Play It Like It's Music"

* You can hire me to produce your podcast.

* Or get supportive: visit Patreon

* Social: IG \ TW \ FB

* trevorexter.com

Get full access to Play it Like It's Music at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe

Peace of Mind Feb 27, 2019

Show notes

In this edition:

* Edition #two of my “email exclusive” sonic dispatches (press play and then scroll to follow the written version.)

* A treat for your face and what’s behind it

[me, sometime in the 80’s]

Peace of mind

I don't always remember the incredible peace of mind that comes from playing. Life makes me lose the plot and forget what's missing until I find the sound again.

But man, when it comes back it's like the smell of toast. There's nothing like it.

It's the most basic thing: you touch something with your hands and sound comes out.

Then the sound touches you and makes your movements change from what you hear.

Your hands change, the sound changes, you change. And on around.

A beautiful little feedback loop.

There's energy in it, and joy too.

So simple.

I wonder what it would be like if we were taught music with this simple feedback loop as a basis, instead of the usual mimicry and patriotism.

At the core, playing should feel like playing.

Unless you find a real mission with music, the joy of playing should remain the only purpose.

And if the joy is hot enough you might find yourself wanting to write songs, produce soundtracks, go out for the big Concerto...

But keep an eye on the joy.

It can turn into ambition so easily.

And the drag there is that you won't notice if it happens.

Just the listeners will.

Your collaborators will also notice before you do.

If it stops being fun momentarily, that's ok. Life isn't always fun.

But if music is your job because you embarked on that mission, remember that most of the listeners want it to be fun. They might think you chose the job of providing them with fun in the form of music.

But music isn't a job, it's a calling.

It's better when you learn to dance with it.

True sounds, joyful sounds, feedback loops...

Energy.

Peace.

something curated:

Here’s another two minute eye/brain massage. I can’t get enough of these:

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

I appreciate you more than you know, and thanks for all your lovely replies to the first audio dispatch last week. It’s great to know how it’s landing. Go ahead, hit “reply” and let’s keep this going.

Better yet, maybe share it with someone you think might like it?

Love your ears,

Trevor

If you appreciate my work, it’s in these other places too:

* Check out the “Trevor Exter Playlist” on Spotify

* Hear 18 episodes of: "Play It Like It's Music"

* You can hire me to produce your podcast.

* Or get supportive: visit Patreon

* Social: IG \ TW \ FB

* trevorexter.com

Get full access to Play it Like It's Music at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe

The Blank Canvas Feb 21, 2019

Show notes

In this edition:

* A short riff on silence, complete with narration and musical accompaniment

* You read that right! (Press play dear friends, and engage those headphones.)

* A sweet recommendation.

The blank canvas

Some people feel they need to make a loud sound in order to feel beautiful. For them, the power they put into and extract from an amp is the only way to experience an honest sound.

This is sacrosanct for some people, and I'd respect it more if the sounds these people made didn't drown out all the other sounds so insistently.

We don't all have the same set of issues.

I like to bring it, loudly and through an amp with the cello. But the real work is done with my hands, and sometimes it happens at an SPL so close to silence that you wouldn't know it was happening even if you were here in the room with me.

There's a wide, wide range.

And the sound of actual silence has a power beyond anything, not to mention a beauty you can't find anywhere else.

I work hard on my sound, but I also burn a lot of bandwidth creating that silent space in which to play. It's like stretching a canvas before you paint: the silence is under everything so I take care of that part first.

And I'll tell you the truth, it's one of the hardest parts because it's a noisy world out here.

And while you can totally start something without a bed of silence, it's one way I've found to know right away if my noise is coming from an honest place.

We all end up there eventually, so might as well make friends with it.

something curated:

I’m a huge fan of the podcast “Scene On Radio”. It’s made at the Center For Documentary studies and their last two seasons have been addictive, bingeworthy masterpieces. The force is strong in host John Biewen, master of the podcast trick of making you think and feel deeply while entertaining and relating. Many dimensions! Check them out below and get hip to some beautifully gentle-voiced piercing honesty.

Seeing White

MEN

Thank you for reading and subscribing.

I appreciate you more than you know, and I especially want to hear your thoughts about this first edition of an “audio newsletter”. Go ahead, hit “reply”, because I’ve never done anything like this before.

It was all made today, for you, right now. How do you like it?

Love your face,

Trevor

If you appreciate my work, may I ask you to help share it?

* Check out the “Trevor Exter Playlist” on Spotify

* Hear 18 episodes of: "Play It Like It's Music"

* You can hire me to produce your podcast.

* Or get supportive: visit Patreon

* Social: IG \ TW \ FB

* trevorexter.com

Get full access to Play it Like It's Music at playitlikeitsmusic.substack.com/subscribe