The Motorcycle Diaries

The Motorcycle Diaries is considered to be one of Gustavo Santaolalla’s greatest film scores.

The film depicts the complex human and social landscape of South America in the early 1950’s. The film, directed by Walter Salles, is adapted from the journals of two real-life Argentines, Alberto Granado and Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, the latter of whom would become “Che” Guevara.

I prefer to see The Motorcycle Diaries almost like (a Latin American) version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. It’s a coming of age story as two young men venture into their broader landscape and culture. The film also reveals the Latin American continent in all its beauty.

How to play Leyendo en el Hospital | fingerstyle guitar

Leyendo en el Hospital (reading in the hospital) is a sparce, but powerful motif by Gustavo Santaolalla. This was a pivotal piece of music for me — as I realized a single nylon string guitar, with some haunting reverb, could perfectly score a film.

It has become one of my favorite guitar pieces ever — as Santaolalla’s guitar sound is deep, round, drenched in reverb, and totally raw. He uses his (now signature) two-note interval technique. Although the chord shapes are very easy to play, you’ll have to be very agile to play this song.

[The guitar tab for this piece is 3 pages long and played straight through. The strummed sections use an open hand strum. You can see the technique in 0:53 of the video. Pretend that you’re flicking water at someone with your strumming hand. The giant X indicates that the strings are muted with your fingering hand.]

**Leyendo en el Hospital by Gustavo Santaolalla

Leyendo en el Hospital is played in a very low, 2 1/2 step down, tuning. Here’s the tuning from low to high: B E A D F# B. You could just as easily tune one whole step down (D G C F A D) and the song will sound reasonably good.