By That Much has had quite a journey.

I originally wrote the instrumental in 1991 for a Guitar Center guitar contest held at the Red Onion in West Covina, California. I performed it there twice—once in the preliminary round, which I won, and again in the finals.

I didn't win the finals.

But I later learned from a friend who overheard the judges deliberating that it had come down to me and the eventual winner.

I lost by that much. 😉

And a song had its name.

The backing track had been recorded in the studio of my friend Brian Spaun, who graciously let me use his Tascam 8-track reel-to-reel while I was playing in his band, Sunset 101. The band was winding down at the time, and I managed to get the track finished just under the wire before we completely disbanded.

My friend Justin Juknelis played bass and laid down an awesome groove that has stood the test of time. That backing track was eventually mixed down to two tracks on my Vesta Fire 4-track cassette recorder, and that's what I played along with live at the Red Onion.

Justin also videotaped my performance that night. I'm incredibly fortunate he did. He's an awesome friend, and without him—and several other friends who were there along the way—I simply wouldn't have some of this history today.

A few months after the contest, I decided I wanted to record the guitar solo properly for posterity.

I remember the weekend surprisingly well. My wife had gone to Las Vegas with her mother and grandmother, and I was home with our beautiful daughter, Daryl, who was about 18 months old.

So there I was: Dad for the weekend and recording guitarist whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Apparently Daryl and I had a pretty good arrangement, because I don't remember her giving me any trouble—and somehow I got the recording finished. 😄

I'd played the piece so many times preparing for and performing at the contest that the recorded solo came out almost note-for-note the way I'd played it live. I was very happy with it then.

I'm still happy with it today.

35 Years Later...

That recording has now followed me through more than three decades of changing technology.

8-track reel-to-reel.

4-track cassette.

Digital conversion.

New computers every four or five years.

New recording software.

Better processing and mastering tools.

And, eventually, AI.

I've used AI to breathe remarkable new life into some of my old recordings (all of the other recordings here). In several cases, it has helped me realize versions of songs that I could only have imagined when I originally recorded them.

But not this one.

I've tried.

AI can make By That Much cleaner. It can make it bigger. It can surround my old ideas with modern production.

But it can't quite capture what I did on that original recording.

And this one is special to me.

So I'm leaving it alone.

What you're hearing is essentially that old recording, carried forward through all those generations of technology and cleaned up as much as I reasonably can without losing what made it mine in the first place.

And I'm pretty happy with how it has survived.

Musically, By That Much may be one of the best instrumentals I've ever recorded. It was written for a guitar contest, so subtlety wasn't exactly the assignment. 😄

This was supposed to show what I could do.

So I pulled out all the stops.

It's basically all my guitar tricks in one bag—melody, phrasing, technique, tone and probably a little youthful showing off.

It was intended to demonstrate my playing more than my songwriting.

Looking back, I think it managed to demonstrate both.

Thirty-five years later, the contest really doesn't matter much anymore.

I didn't get the win.

But I got the song.

And given that I'm still listening to it, still proud of it, and now able to release it for people around the world to hear...

I'd say things worked out pretty well.

By That Much. 😉

Enjoy.

— Troy Barry

1985: The year it all really started.