The Princess Bride The Princess Bride (1987) is a fantasy adventure comedy directed by Rob Reiner.  It was adapted from the 1973 novel of the same name, and tells the story of Westly — who must rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup, from the odious Prince Humperdinck. […]

Outer Banks: Midsummers (guitar theme) This piece is very obscure, but I had a bunch of folks request this all at once on YouTube, Instagram, etc. Although it’s a great riff — it might only appeal to fans of the Netflix series, Outer Banks. The […]

Blome Swete Lilie Flour Daniel Hart is one of my favorite composers . He often pairs with director, David Lowery (The Green Knight) — and has a very distinct tonality to his music. No matter how many instruments he uses — it always feels like […]

Cowboys & Aliens Cowboys & Aliens is a 2011 American space Western film directed by Jon Favreau. It stars Daniel Craig, Oliva Wilde, and Harrison Ford. The film is based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name. The plot revolves around an amnesiac […]

Brokeback Mountain Suite About 10 years ago, Gustavo Santaolalla performed the Brokeback Mountain Suite for the Latin program, Encuentro en el Estudio. To date, it’s his best performance of the Brokeback Mountain score (and I’ve watched them all). The guitar tone is gorgeous. You’ll notice […]

Wicked Game For my money, the two greatest unrequited love songs are: U2’s With or Without You, and Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game. The former can prompt one to hold a lighter in the air and bellow “…and you give yourself a-way-a”. The latter makes (me) […]

All Gone (Seasons) The Last of Us Volume 2, is the supplemental soundtrack for ‘The Last of Us: Left Behind’ – downloadable expansion content that would be later bundled into ‘The Last of Us Remastered’. The music features compositions from the game, composed and produced […]

Breathe Me Sia’s Breathe Me, is from her 3rd album, Colour the Small One (2004). The song was used to great effect in the poignant finale of Six Feet Under — a landmark HBO drama that premiered 20 years ago last week. Created by screenwriter […]

Mare of Easttown Mare of Easttown was an awesome limited series on HBO. I was emailing back and forth with my friend Derek about the finale this week. His synoptic take was better than anything I could write: “Mare of Easttown was a stunning piece […]

Flight In 2017, I wrote this song in about 15 minutes while in flow state. Artists, musicians, and creators experience the ‘flow state’ to some degree. It’s often called “the zone” — fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus. That’s how I write music […]

Calmamente Calmamente is from the soundtrack of Qhapaq Ñan — Gustavo Santaolalla’s docuseries about the pre-Columbian ‘Inca road system’, which winds for 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles) through the Andean region. It’s a serene song that exemplifies Santaolalla’s minimalist ability to extract the maximum from a few […]

Rush Directed by Ron Howard, Rush is a sports biography film based on the rivalry of Formula One drivers; James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula 1 season. I love Hans Zimmer’s “driving” and thematic music. I wasn’t going to capture that on […]