West Coast Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast” is a dreamy, melancholic ode to California. Released in 2014, it quickly became a summer anthem — with its laid-back vibe and nostalgic lyrics. The song captures the essence of longing, love, and the allure of the West […]

American Sniper Ennio Morricone’s “The Funeral” was used as the closing theme in Clint Eastwood’s 2014 film American Sniper. The song was originally composed for the 1965 spaghetti western, The Return of Ringo. It’s a melancholic piece of music that perfectly captured the final scenes […]

The Whirling Ways of Stars that Pass The Whirling Ways of Stars that Pass is from Johann Johannsson’s 2014 Golden Globe winning score for, The Theory of Everything. It’s a beautiful piece of music that turned out to be an (easy to play) guitar arrangement. […]

Epilogue It’s funny that an Epilogue is a conclusion because it was my very first blog post in 2011. Intellimusica was a weird idea then, and I’ve winged it ever since. This is a full redo of that initial post. Gustavo Santaolalla’s music is where […]

Wake Me Up When September Ends (Jonathan’s Version) I couldn’t stand Green Day. I respected the band as musicians and songwriters, but as a guitar teacher, they’ve been the bane of my existence for 30 years. A constant deluge of ever changing power chord riffs […]

Chevaliers De Sangreal Chevaliers De Sangreal (The Da Vinci Code) is a glorious piece by Hans Zimmer. He has this knack for writing film music with a slight pop sensibility. If we think of Gladiator, Inception and Interstellar — the underpinning of the music is […]

The Journey The Journey (El Viaje) was originally written for Louis Vuitton’s Journey campaign in 2008. The video has some really class cinematography to go with Gustavo Santaolalla’s world music. This piece eventually found it’s way onto Santaolalla’s Camino album in 2014. I think it’s […]

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 […]

Mad World Although written by Tears for Fears, I based my version of Mad World on the stripped down Michael Andrews & Gary Jules performance from 2001’s Donnie Darko. To me, the song is haunting and sort of eerie –as it delves into themes of […]

Moneyball I love this film. I’ve watched it at least 25 times. Moneyball is a 2011 biographical sports-drama film based on an account of the 2002 Oakland Athletics baseball team — and their general manager Billy Beane’s attempts to assemble a competitive team. In the […]

A Christmas Carol (2019) “What was the purpose of our gross accumulation?” – Jacob Marley A Christmas Carol (2019) is a British miniseries (starring Guy Pearce) based on the 1843 novella of the same name by Charles Dickens. It aired on FX in the United […]

To the Stars As of this writing, To the Stars, is the first released song from Brad Pitt’s deep space epic, Ad Astra. I think about Pitt’s career often. His IMDb page is ridiculously good. From early in the 90’s his roles where carefully chosen […]