The Last of Us (Astray) Astray is basically an iteration of the main title theme played on a Fender guitar bass: a six string bass that looks and feels more like a baritone guitar. Gustavo Santaolalla employed the guitar bass on other selections from The […]

Life in 12 Bars Life in 12 Bars is a behind the scenes documentary of Eric Clapton’s musical restlessness and personal tragedy. Clapton’s quest to grow his artistic voice saw him routinely abandon successful relationships with bands and women. His solitary pursuit of his craft, […]

Sendero I originally posed this song in 2012, but I’m much better at sound quality now and wanted to update Sendero for 2018. I love how Gustavo Santaolalla stays tight to the beat, almost like fingerstyle funk. As per usual, he’s only working with a […]

The Wings The Wings completes my arrangements for the Oscar winning Brokeback Mountain Soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. This song is what initially drew me into Gustavo Santaolalla’s film score work, way back in 2005. The film was very controversial then, and I remember cleaning my […]

Brokeback Mountain 3 Brokeback Mountain 3 is an achingly beautiful piece of music from Gustavo Santaolalla’s Academy award winning Brokeback Mountain score – most of which was played on a single solitary acoustic guitar. ‘Wings’ is the most memorable theme from Brokeback Mountain. However, the […]

All Gone (No Escape) All Gone (No Escape) is originally an orchestral piece. It’s arguably the most achingly beautiful selection from The Last of Us soundtrack. It was fun to imagine what Gustavo Santaolalla might’ve played on guitar. The piece turned out to be a […]

The Last of Us (Variation) The depth and creativity of Gustavo Santaolalla’s The Last of Us soundtrack never ceases to amaze me, even years later. Two of my favorite themes are: the title theme, and The Choice. Inspired by Gustavo Santaolalla’s recent E3 performance, where […]

Brokeback Mountain 2 The Brokeback Mountain score is initially what introduced me to Gustavo Santaolalla’s music in 2005 — for which he won the first of his back-to-back Academy Awards. The minimalist approach and solitary delivery of a lone acoustic guitar was unlike anything we […]

The Last of Us II To introduce The Last of Us Part II at the 2018 E3 gaming convention, Gustavo Santaolalla performed the new central theme from soundtrack. It was a great performance. At the time, the piece was called The Last of Us (Cycles). […]

Seguir Camino is Gustavo Santaolalla’s follow up to his 1998 album, Ronroco. By 1998, Santaolalla was a legendary Latin American musician and music producer. However, Iguazu (from Ronroco) kicked off his second act as film score composer, when Michael Mann used it to great effect […]

Opening If you’ve been a reading my blog for any length of time, it’s not hard to figure out that I’m a Gustavo Santaolalla superfan. It all started with the Brokeback Mountain score: acoustic guitar, empty space, minimalism. I had never heard anything like it.  […]

Chichina I performed Chichina this blog about 7 years ago, however my audio quality was dated and not up to my current standard. I’ve been on a quest to redo the songs that inspire me to play guitar, and Gustavo Santaolalla’s Chichina is one of […]