Altamira
Free audio download on SoundCloud.
Altamira (Mark Knopfler & Evelyn Glennie) is the title track from, Finding Altamira: a 2016 film about a Spanish archaeologist (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter (Allegra Allen) who cause worldwide controversy in 1879 when they discover cave paintings that are 10,000 years old. Here’s a short video where Mark Knopfler explains the music in the film.
I’ve been a Mark Knopfler fan for as long as I can remember. He is truly one of the greatest living songwriters of all time. A world class guitarist — who developed his own inimitable fingerstyle shorthand. In the video, he plays mind blowing licks as an afterthought.
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Gear used
For this piece, I used my Cordoba GK Studio guitar. You can find a current list of my gear here.
My music
You can find my personal music on Spotify, Apple, and all streaming services:
The Intellimusica Spotify Playlist: Ethereal & Cinematic Guitar
Deep cuts from artists like Gustavo Santaolalla, Hans Zimmer, Jeff Buckley, and Radiohead – combine to create a heady flow of music for focus, meditation, and self-reflection. This is a Guitar focused (but not exclusive) playlist that elicits the emotional, captivating quality of modern film scores.
How to play Altamira | fingerstyle guitar
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The guitar tab is beautifully written across 3 pages. I would characterize Altamira as relatively difficult. It’s best for intermediate to advanced guitar players. I’ve also archived it with my 2 Minute Classical guitar category. In there you’ll find sophisticated arrangements that are only 2 minutes long — making them doable for everybody.
Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:
Knopfler is playing a gorgeous solo line for most of the piece. However, to make it sound good as a single, lone guitar piece, I had to incorporate some of the backing chords into the lead melody. I’ve essentially created my own arrangement of Altamira.
You play the guitar tab straight through. On page 3 you’ll play:
Outro, End 1
Outro, End 2
Mark Knopfler: Altamira | fingerstyle guitar
Altamira is played in a Drop-D tuning. Your guitar will be tuned like this (from low to high): D A D G B E
