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 In a dystopian future, The Hungers Games (2012) tells the story of Katniss Everdeen, who is forced to compete in an elaborate televised fight to the death, consisting of adolescent contestants from the 12 Districts of Panem. “Healing Katniss” is arguably the best […]

Sign of the Times Harry Styles’ moonshot is much like Robbie Williams’ ascension in the early 2000’s: former British “boy-band” member goes solo, combining songwriting chops with sensational stage presence and charisma. The American version of this story would be Justin Timberlake. Songwriting craftsmanship is […]

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 — which is a tiny, 5 string Andean guitar. [Actually 10 strings, as two strings create […]

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 series that follows the Rayburns, a family who own and run a beachside hotel in the Florida Keys. When the black sheep of the family, Danny Rayburn, returns home for his parents’ 45th wedding […]

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 […]

Reclaimed Memories Reclaimed Memories is pretty little guitar piece from The Last of Us Part II soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. The signature of this score is Santaolalla’s use of a 6 string guitar banjo. It was very easy to transfer this song to guitar — […]