Waking Up Waking Up is a piece of music from the film, Lone Survivor. This is an awesome movie about the lone survival of Navy SEAL, Marcus Luttrell — after his 4 man reconnaissance team was chased up and down a mountain side by scores […]

Motion Sickness As a guitar teacher, I’m fortunate to be in front of some really cool, music obsessed young people on a daily basis. My student Hannah tips me off to new music all the time, and routinely discovers artists years before they go mainstream. […]

Arrival of the Birds I’ve always liked The Cinematic Orchestra, and their piece, Arrival of the Birds, was recommended to me by a reader. Such beautiful music. It instantly became on one of my favorites. This song is from Disney’s The Crimson Wing: Mystery of […]

In Grace I just released, The Garden Tomb; my first EP since 2012. I’m much more confident in my own editing and mastering these days, so I intend to release music quite frequently. I originally wrote this piece in 2018. In the process of attempting […]

Dancing With a Stranger I’ve been teaching this song to my students recently, and it’s become a bit of an earworm for me. I’ve long been a Sam Smith fan. In some instances, Smith does have a whinny tenor — but most of the work […]

Beautiful Lie I highly recommend the extended cut of Batman v Superman on HBO Max. A full 30 minutes has been added to the film which develops the characters and storyline much better. It’s essentially “The Snyder Cut” of the film. Beautiful Lie is the […]

The Queen’s Gambit The Queen’s Gambit is a drama miniseries about the life of orphaned chess prodigy, Beth Harmon. The Netflix series chronicles her rise to the top of the chess world, while struggling with drug and alcohol dependency. The excellent music is by composer, […]

The Theory of Everything The Theory of Everything (2014) is a  biographical romantic drama film set at the University of Cambridge. It details the life of the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. The exquisite music, by the late Johann Johannsson, won the Golden Globe for best […]

Fossils I have long been a massive fan of Dustin O’Halloran’s music. Both his solo material, film work, and (side project) A Winged Victory for the Sullen. His music has a tenderness that is unmistakable. I don’t know much about piano — but O’Halloran appears […]

Mary Magdalene (2018) Mary Magdalene is a 2018 film directed by Garth Davis. It stars Rooney Mara, and Joaquin Phoenix. This is one of Johann Johannsson’s final film scores before his sudden death in 2018. This film dispels the myth (by Pope Gregory in 591) […]

Their First Time Their First Time, by composer Adam Taylor, is the standout piece from the Hulu original series, The Handmaid’s Tale. I love the simplicity and repetition of this motif. My hope is to pair back my own songwriting to something this sparse and […]

Morning Morning is the central theme from August: Osage County — a highly underrated soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. Much like Brokeback Mountain, the film’s score has Santaolalla exploring uniquely American themes. Known for his minimalism, Santaolalla uses a subtle, often sparse approach that acts as […]