Cordon de Plata Cordon de Plata is a beautiful piece of music from Gustavo Santaolalla’s album, Camino. I believe that record is a collection of instrumentals that didn’t find a home in Santaolalla’s various film projects over the years. Almost certainly this piece was intended […]

Waking Up Waking Up is a piece of music from the film, Lone Survivor. This is an awesome movie about the lone survival of Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell — after his 4 man reconnaissance team was chased up and down a mountain side by scores […]

Beautiful Lie I highly recommend the extended cut of Batman v Superman on HBO Max. A full 30 minutes has been added to the film which develops the characters and storyline much better. It’s essentially “The Snyder Cut” of the film. Beautiful Lie is the […]

The Theory of Everything The Theory of Everything (2014) is a  biographical romantic drama film set at the University of Cambridge. It details the life of the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. The exquisite music, by the late Johann Johannsson, won the Golden Globe for best […]

Mary Magdalene (2018) Mary Magdalene is a 2018 film directed by Garth Davis. It stars Rooney Mara, and Joaquin Phoenix. This is one of Johann Johannsson’s final film scores before his sudden death in 2018. This film dispels the myth (by Pope Gregory in 591) […]

Their First Time Their First Time, by composer Adam Taylor, is the standout piece from the Hulu original series, The Handmaid’s Tale. I love the simplicity and repetition of this motif. My hope is to pair back my own songwriting to something this sparse and […]

Morning Morning is the central theme from August: Osage County — a highly underrated soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. Much like Brokeback Mountain, the film’s score has Santaolalla exploring uniquely American themes. Known for his minimalism, Santaolalla uses a subtle, often sparse approach that acts as […]

Aniron I saw The Lord of the Rings movies years ago and thought they were breathtaking. I recall The Hobbit films more recently, and they were equally as good. Both series of films have spectacular music by composer, Howard Shore. This piece is actually called […]

Valhalla Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has a really strong melody that was easy to capture as a short guitar arrangement. It turned out to be a perfect étude; a short musical composition, designed as an exercise to improve technique and demonstrate skill. I love these short […]

Intro by The xx Within my lifestyle as a guitar teacher and guitar blogger, nothing is more apparent to me, then people’s lack of self-confidence, or perceived status, as a guitarist. I’m not immune either. However, it’s important to realize that it’s often your identity […]

But for the Fall of Rain This is piece of music I wrote for Adam Taylor’s micro-short animation, But for the Fall of Rain. [Parents, although it’s an animation, there is an F-bomb in there.] Adam is a Hollywood based editor and filmmaker. The voice […]

Soft Descent | Inextinguishable Flames While Inextinguishable Flames is the prototypical riff from The Last of Us Part II — Soft Descent is more reminiscent of Gustavo Santaolalla’s work on The Motorcycle Diaries. The latter is quite possibly his greatest soundtrack. With this piece, the […]