Intellimusica

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night I really love the new Lanterns series on HBO. It’s definitely geared toward a more adult audience — much like the Star Wars spinoff, Andor. It also gives a True Detective vibe, as both of the protagonists are investigating […]

Cornfield Chase I’ve always wanted to double back to the crux of the Interstellar theme, which is really the motif titled “Cornfield Chase.” This was a high-water mark for composer Hans Zimmer. His genius is in not being outsmarted by his own technical skill — […]

If This Be Victory I generally like House of the Dragon. I’ve watched every season, and season three started strong with the Battle of the Gullet, but midway through I found myself not caring about these characters as much as I did in Game of […]

Web Letter Days The new Spider-Man was a great time at the theater. In my day job, most of my guitar students are young people and I’m surprised at the sheer love they have for (Tom Holland’s) Spider-Man. It’s reflected at the Box Office. We […]

Penelope “Penelope” is a pretty little motif from composer Ludwig Göransson, built around Anne Hathaway’s character, and it wasn’t quite captured in my last two arrangements from The Odyssey. I’ve been re-watching Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy with my son, and Anne Hathaway is fantastic […]

Too Near to Touch I think a lot about the onset of a relationship. The beginning of love. For me, the adoration and desire were instantaneous when I met my wife. I was 21, she was 19. We both worked at the same store at […]

Chasing the Escaping Sun As I write this, I saw Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey about a week ago, and I’m still sitting with it. I enjoyed it, yes — but I can’t tell if I loved it? I’ll need a re-watch. To me Oppenheimer was […]

Suite New Day I was surprised by how restrained “Suite New Day” is — the new Spider-Man theme from composer Michael Giacchino. It’s actually the End Credits theme, not the triumphant send-off you’d expect. But that’s my whole thing… restrained and cinematic, so naturally I […]

L’attente (The Waiting) L’attente (The Waiting) follows a traditional 1-4-5 blues structure, even though it’s a French-styled piece of music. “French-styled” might be presumptuous of me — music carries no geographic borders — but I can’t help envisioning a dimly lit café in Paris when […]

The Odyssey Theme At this point, I can definitely hear (composer) Ludwig Göransson’s aesthetic when he’s scoring a Christopher Nolan film. There’s a linear nature to the music… a veneer as familiar as Nolan’s blueish hues and title font. Although completely different, The Odyssey and […]

Gonna Fly Now I was in 3rd grade (8 turning 9) during the ’85-’86 school year — and my childhood was an amazingly patriotic time to be alive. The Cold War was hanging over the culture and this was punctuated by several USA vs. the […]

Dreamscapes Dreamscapes is a sparse fingerstyle guitar piece by multi-instrumentalist composer Gustavo Santaolalla. The motif comes from the soundtrack of Dear Child (Liebes Kind), a German thriller limited series on Netflix. The show reopens a 13-year-old missing-persons case after a woman is struck by a […]