What Do You Know?

I’ve seen Alex Garland’s Annihilation a few times now. If you haven’t watched it, it’s a beautiful, unsettling science fiction trip. Starring Natalie Portman and directed by Garland (Ex Machina), the film follows a biologist into “The Shimmer”—a mysterious zone where nature has essentially lost its mind. It’s a place where DNA refracts like light in a prism, creating these gorgeous mutations that are as dangerous as they are fascinating.

As a guitarist, the musical motif will definitely stand out to you. The ambient soundscape, by composers Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, is punctuated and contrasted with a steel-string guitar theme known on the soundtrack as What Do You Know?, Disoriented, and The Watchtower. It’s a hypnotic, fingerstyle piece that perfectly captures the “beautiful dread” of the movie. It has this swampy, Deep South Louisiana vibe to it.

I performed and recorded this piece years ago for YouTube and Intellimusica, but having rewatched the film a few times since then, I felt compelled to revisit it. I wanted to create a version that was a bit longer, but also simpler—really focusing on a tighter arrangement.

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How to play What Do You Know? | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for What Do You Know? is laid out across three pages and is a very approachable play. For the most part, you’ll only have a single finger on the fretboard at any given time.

My arrangement is intentionally simple: you just play the TAB straight through, twice. I’d recommend this piece for beginners and up. Have fun with it!

The guitar tab is available below:

[guitar tab] **Annihilation (2018): What Do You Know? | fingerstyle guitar

Annihilation is played in an unusual tuning (from low to high): D A D E G D.