Hans Zimmer: DUNE | fingerstyle guitar
Photo by Daniel Olah | Unsplash

D U N E

Hans Zimmer’s DUNE soundtrack is absolutely gnarly. It played out brilliantly in the film too. Personally, I don’t know much about Dune (the book). The synopsis seems incredibly complicated — and it’s clearly been tough to bring this story to life in film.

The 1984 film version of DUNE (directed by David Lynch) was a critical and commercial bust. While I highly respect David Lynch’s work — in this case — his esoteric style further tangled an already complex story. However, this new redux by David Villeneuve is far more accessible.

Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack is futuristic and immensely listenable. Hans Zimmer and Villeneuve discussed the possibility of DUNE during their work on Blade Runner 2049. Zimmer articulated that it’s been a lifelong dream to score a film adaptation of DUNE. Together, they felt a strong femininity to the story — and they wanted to retain that in the music. Thus, we have the primal-female vocal line that can been heard throughout the score — most notably in Gom Jabber.

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How to play Herald of the Change | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab is beautifully written across 4 pages, and I recommend this piece for intermediate guitar players and up. I based this guitar arrangement from the track, Herald of the Change, where the principle melody is syncopated and has a mellower execution. I also added elements of the tracks: Gom Jabber and Leaving Caladan. The whole thing is essentially one passage played straight through.

Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:

My order of play looks like this:

Intro (my own creation)

Herald of Change (0:12)

Gom Jabber (0:59)
This is my take on the primal-female vocal line. I used Gustavo Santaolalla’s fingerstyle technique from The Last of Us.

Leaving Caladan (1:33)
This is really the same deal as Herald of Change, however the bass-note changes slightly in the repeated section.

DUNE: Herald of the Change (Hans Zimmer) fingerstyle guitar

This piece is tuned one whole step down (from low to high): D G C F A D. You could just as easily play it in standard tuning, albeit with a slightly higher tonality.

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