Wim Den Herder’s amazing compositions fuse mechanical curiosity with rare melodic sensibility.

If you’ve followed Wim online over the years, you may remember the old skool viral videos of his seemingly impossible Oscar Peterson transcriptions, or the blistering 3000-note marathon of a solo he composed over Gershwin’s venerable “I’ve Got Rhythm” chord changes.

But it’s really his compositions where all these prodigious skills come together. Given creative free reign in a song format, his sound is a really unique and appealing combination of intricate interlocking lead and rhythm parts, hooky melodies, and deft dynamics that transition from whisper quiet to funk fury.

In a process he playfully terms “Wimpicking”, Wim’s basslines leave strategic gaps filled by upper register notes. Like images in a flipbook, when played up to tempo, melodic lines and rhythmic contours emerge that aren’t apparent when the same phrases are played slowly.

Wim visited our studio prepared with three song-length compositions featuring his signature “Wimpicking” lead-meets-rhythm approach: “Mad Max”, “Karoshi”, and the eponymous “Wimpicking”.  The interview contains complete transcriptions of all three songs, as well as a collection of valuable insights on motor skill learning and practice that helped him develop his enormous chops.