I remember the very day Urban Hymns was released. I took the day off of work (it was that important to me), bought the CD at Sam Goody, and drove around blaring it from my car stereo. I had been playing in my new band […]

As you can probably tell, I am on a Radiohead bender — and I’m almost ashamed that I haven’t explored solo-guitar interpretations/arrangements of their music until now. Not to belabor the blog thing, but if you want to be successful, their are certain things you have […]

Many props to Quentin Tarantino for still putting so much emphasis on soundtracks. This time around his Django Unchained soundtrack/score is a highly stylized mix of old-school spaghetti western, retro R&B, and hip-hop. Rather than the all encompassing interpretations I normally do — this can be considered an instrumental version of […]

Extreme Ways is the default theme song for the Bourne franchise — specifically the conclusion of each movie. Just when you think Jason Bourne or (in Legacy’s case) Arron Cross has disappeared — the sampled violins strike and Bourne is on the move. To memorize […]

Like many of you, I find myself still listening to the big three from the movie Drive. I particularly enjoy listening to Nightcall — oddly enough, while I’m driving — at night. Having listened to Nightcall dozens of times, I couldn’t help but wonder what it […]

[Updated November 2021] Free audio download on SoundCloud. This piece is available on all streaming services including: Spotify & Apple. Greensleeves: a brief history Believed to be composed in the late 16th/early 17th century, ‘Greensleeves’ never began it’s many incarnations as a Christmas song. It […]

Riding Horses (This post and tab have been updated as of 8/31/20) Riding Horses is one of my favorite selections from Gustavo Santaolalla’s iconic, Academy Award winning score for Brokeback Mountain. It’s truly one Gustavo Santaolalla’s most beautiful melodies. The actual piece is two separate […]

[Updated: August 2017] Lima Lima is one of my favorite tracks from Gustavo Santaolalla’s The Motorcycle Diaries soundtrack. Rather than (his usual) simple playing approach, Lima really displays Santaolalla’s guitar prowess. I had an opportunity to see Gustavo Santaolalla play live in Pittsburgh with his band Bajofondo. […]

[Updated September 2017] Biutiful Biutiful stars Javier Bardem and is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman). Biutiful is a love story between a father and his children. Uxbal (Bardem) is a conflicted man who struggles to reconcile fatherhood, guilt, and mortality amidst the […]

[Updated post and tab: May 2017] The Motorcycle Diaries The Motorcycle Diaries is considered to be one of Gustavo Santaolalla’s greatest film scores. Film synopsis (edited from the official Focus Features site): The Motorcycle Diaries, depicts the rich, complex human and social landscape of early […]

[Updated for 2017] Things We Lost in the Fire, is a 2007 drama starring Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro: A recent widow (Berry) invites her husband’s troubled best friend (Del Toro) to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his […]

[Updated: 2017] Welcome! Gustavo Santaolalla’s Epilogue was my very first blog post in 2011. Intellimusica was an idea, and I’ve winged it from this first post ever since. Santaolalla is where it all started with me. I became a huge fan of his film score […]