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 […]

Cover Me Up Cover Me Up was the song that first introduced me to incredible singer/songwriter Jason Isbell. Forget the writing – the raw honesty of the song, and power of Isbell’s voice is what captured me. It’s just brutal in every good sense of […]

cardigan I’ve always liked Taylor Swift. In fact, she’s responsible for most of my physical lesson business. In the mid 2000’s, mostly boys (and very few girls) played guitar. That suddenly changed around 2007 when Taylor Swift became the biggest star in the world. Ever […]

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). […]

Unsolved Mysteries Unsolved Mysteries is a mystery documentary television show — documenting cold cases and paranormal phenomena. The series has been revamped on Netflix and it’s enthralling. The first episode, Mystery on the Rooftop is totally bizarre. There’s 6 episodes in total. Each one is […]

Longing This arrangement combines both Longing and Longing (Redemptions) from The Last of Us Part II soundtrack. The latter of which is actually played on a Ronroco — a tiny, 5 string Andean guitar — that Gustavo Santaolalla employs on many of his songs. Both […]

Anna I wrote this song in 2016 as part of a (rough draft) score for a short-film entitled, Broken Noons, by Guillermo L. Vázquez. I loved working with Guillermo, and that was my first opportunity scoring anything. The film went on to become the Official […]