As a longtime time fan of the likes of Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, etc, I’ve always wanted to write an instrumental song, but never actually got around to it. Until sometime back in 2010...

I started writing this song, Reconnect, back in 2010. The first thing that came out was the main guitar melody. All other parts came out of that. Fast forward to July, 2013, I finally had the time and everything I needed to finish arranging the song and record it.

When I wrote the melody I didn’t think at all what the rhythm guitar would sound like. When finally arranging the song, I started hearing in my head what the backing track music should sound like, and the song started to take shape.

The way I had it written, the melodies and parts were already chained together, so finishing the song’s arrangement was mostly a matter of figuring out what other pieces I may wanted to add to it. Once it was clear what the song was about, then it was clear what the missing pieces were: guest guitar leads by some longtime friends of mine.

While all the main parts were written based on the melody first, the part that starts at 2’30" was the other way around; I wrote the rhythm part and really liked the progression, and as I was arranging the song, I came up with the lick that goes over that part, and I thought it worked out as the perfect link between Andre’s solo, mine, and Milton’s.

The last section of the song I decided to start on the keyboard, and then transition into all instruments (with the riff as originally written). The idea of that part was to have this cyclical feel to it, giving the meaning of "what goes around, comes around", which sums up the overall meaning of this song.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve always been a fan of instrumental artists. While I didn’t have any of them in mind as I was writing this song, I knew I wanted something that had a catchy hook melody (similar to my favorite Satriani tunes), and maybe one or two shredding solos (similar to Malmsteen).

The drums parts came out of what I heard in my head as I listened to the guitar tracks. When I sat behind the drums I just started playing it the way I was feeling it, and it came together real quick.

I think the trickiest parts were the ones where I had to keep the double kicks going for several measures (since my drum skills aren’t there yet), and the final section, with its specific time signature, which took me a few attempts to find something I liked.

Overall, I think this is my best drum work so far.

The bass lines either followed the guitar melodies or the rhythms. I know that bass playing is still my weakest, because I’m still not getting in a bass player mindset, so I still approach it as a guitarist.

After arranging the entire song, I made sure to have spots for solos for myself and both my friends Andre and Milton. I’ve sent them an raw mix, told them where they should put a solo on, and let them go at it. They wrote their leads, recorded, and send it over to me.

Andre was my guitar partner at my main teenage band back then. It had been almost 20 years since the last time we had recorded something together! He was the one helped me take my guitar skill up to the next level all those years ago. When he sent me his solo, I really felt like harmonizing it so we could be seeing playing the same part together on the video. Blast from the past!

My friendship with Milton also goes back 20 years, and we've shared lots of musical inspirations and recording tips over the years. We’ve always talked about collaborating on some song together, but actually done it, so this time I just had to make it happen. Having him lay a solo on this special track was great!

My solo in between the two: it was meant to be a musical connection between these two good friends of mine.

Wait, it’s an instrumental song, isn’t it?

Glad you asked. Yes, it is an instrumental song, but I wanted to drop in some spoken words in the middle of the song in order to add to the meaning of this track. I knew the song should be called Reconnect, so I looked up the definition of the word, and that’s what I used in the song.

Yes, I know, there’s nobody singing here. But again, I needed some spoken words, so there you go.

My original thought was to have my wife say the words, since she was the main sparkle for this song to be written. But she doesn’t feel comfortable with speaking English (yet…), so I ended up doing it myself.

I thought it’d be a good idea to play an intro to the song on the keyboards, based on the main guitar melody.

As mentioned earlier, I also like the keyboard part that works as a transition into the last section of the song. That one was little trickier for me, since keyboard playing is also not my forte at the moment.

The song is about reconnecting with people who are important in my life, as well as emotions that I had somehow buried inside of me. Both people and emotions tend to come and go. Sometimes you end up not seeing somebody you really like for a long, long time (for a variety of reasons), and when you get together again, it is as if nothing has changed… it just feels right. The connection is there.

I had just reconnected with somebody really important in my life. Somebody I hadn’t seen in years. At the first chance sitting alone by myself, I picked up my guitar and started playing whatever came to mind (and hands). Pretty much the entire song was written at that moment.

The video of this song, as it’s always the case in my videos, shows me playing the instruments and singing (because that’s my favorite type of music video, where I get to see the band playing). Also following my style, I add several things that only myself and a couple of close people may understand the meaning.

Spread through the video, there are little inserts showing me, sitting by myself, writing the song (I like capturing songwriting in video, as it makes it easier for me to relearn what I wrote).

Milton’s playing was recorded by himself and sent over to me, whereas Andre’s I’ve captured over a Skype call.

I really need to point out how great it was to have Andre also giving me some recording and production tips. I’m really no sound engineer, and I just know the bare minimum: I plug stuff in, and hit the red button.

Andre heard a couple of raw mixes, and gave me some simple, valuable tips on how I could improve the sound of my recording, and I believe the final result shows a lot of improvements when compared to my previous recordings.

Reconnect: Re-establish a bond of communication or emotion...