Photo by Ivana Cajina | Unsplash

Altamira

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 this video, he plays mind blowing licks as an afterthought. 

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How to play Altamira | fingerstyle guitar

 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