Don’t get through the notes. Get the notes through.
In the late 90’s, I was a new kid on the block writing original music and trying to get people to listen to it. I formed various bands with many awesome musicians. But one musician I had the greatest honor to work with was a guy named Derek Julien.
When my band recorded our second album, our lead guitar player had moved to another country and I wanted to get the best possible player to work with us. Clearly, Derek was among the finest guitarists you could find anywhere in the world. I met him and begged him to play on our album. He dismissed me initially, but ultimately gave in to my relentless pursuit and agreed.
I spent a month in the studio with Derek. During that time, I learned how to harness the power of music. It was a skill that informed everything I did from that point on, and continue to do to this day. Derek had the magical ability to slice time and slow it down to a point where he controlled it. The secret to playing blazing fast guitar solos was not to try to play fast but to acquire such mastery over time that there was no shortage of it. He seemed to have all the time in the world to play every note he played. It was never about getting through his notes. It was about getting his notes through.
For my young mind, watching Derek’s musical phrasing was a daily masterclass. I wrote songs that were incredibly difficult for most people to play. They included time-signature changes, polyrhythms, syncopation, and unusual tempo changes. Derek typically had no preview of most of the songs I wrote. He just walked into the studio, listened to the already recorded rhythm tracks once, and nailed his solo usually in a single take, blowing everyone away. The rhythmic complexity was nothing for him.
So I got greedy and wrote a song just for him to solo over. It had very few words and we played a super long rhythm section that we knew he would bring to life. In fact, we played that section for so long we didn’t even know when we were going to stop. We played “live” in the studio and just jammed our way to end it after a while.
When Derek entered the studio, he had no idea about the song. I’m not even sure we played the whole thing for him even once. We just hit record and let him have a go at it. And somehow, he nailed every last thing including layering fills, the main solo (including a beautiful build-up and climax) and most importantly he actually ended it perfectly on the exact note he was supposed to, purely on intuition. This was the first and only take, and it was musical gold.
The news of Derek’s passing today has left me heartbroken. He taught me how to splice time and look in between notes. It’s a skill that I have applied to everything in life and it’s what empowered me to see things that most others don’t. I will always be grateful to him and cherish his memory with the beautiful music we made together.
