Only Solitude I adore this piece of music from Gustavo Santaolalla’s Monsterland soundtrack. So creative, so beautiful. While it’s actually played on a violin, I reimagined it as a solo guitar piece in Santaolalla’s signature, minimalist style. You might also like to play… The Haunting […]

The Haunting of Bly Manor This performance is musical suite comprising the central themes from The Haunting of Bly Manor. The Newton Brothers (Andy Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart) have really outdone themselves in dramatic fashion. As with its predecessor (The Haunting of Hill House) […]

Everything In Its Right Place It’s hard to believe that Radiohead’s Kid-A was released exactly 21 years ago. The record is still one of the most futuristic albums you’ll ever hear. The opening track, Everything In Its Right Place, was also used as the opening of […]

The Last of the Mohicans While the film and soundtrack are timeless — the music production was fairly chaotic for The Last of the Mohicans. Director Michael Mann had initially requested that Trevor Jones (composer) provide an electronic score for the film. That surprises me […]

The Ludlows Legends of the Fall (1994) is an epic American historical drama, directed by Edward Zwick and starring Brad Pitt. The film is about three brothers and their father living on the plains of Montana in the early 20th century and how their lives […]

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is about, Oskar, a boy on the autism spectrum, who loses his father on 9/11. Upon finding a mysterious key in his father’s closet, he is convinced that his dad left a final message for […]

Healing Katniss Healing Katniss is arguably the best piece of music from The Hunger Games score by James Newton Howard. Though I posted this song 8 years ago, it was time for an update. I’m much better a trimming unnecessary details from my arrangements. No […]

It Can’t Last It Can’t Last is a dynamic little song from The Last of Us Part II soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. This piece is played on a Ronroco. Think of that as a tiny Andean guitar. I would say ukulele — but they’re a […]

The Water Lets You In Bloodline (2015-2017) is a Netflix original thriller-drama. The series co-stars one of my all-time favorite actors, Ben Mendelsohn. The theme song, The Water Lets You In, is a deep-bayou Americana riff by the defunct LA band, Book of Fears. I LOVE […]

Allowed to be Happy This is definitely my favorite piece from The Last of Us Part II soundtrack. The chorus section has a slight pop sensibility to it. I love how Santaolalla creates long passages. Each song feels like a journey. This piece was also […]

Prometheus Prometheus, a prequel to Alien, explores the origin of The Engineer from the beginning of the 1979 film. We learn The Engineers are a race of superbeings that have seeded primordial earth with their DNA. The alien as we know it, is actually a […]

Grieving Grieving is some very creative (yet minimalist) guitar work by Gustavo Santaolalla, from The Last of Us Part II soundtrack. It fits well with the ‘All Gone’ themes from both game soundtracks. I expanded well beyond the original motif to create, Grieving (a variation). […]