Brokeback Mountain Suite About 10 years ago, Gustavo Santaolalla performed the Brokeback Mountain Suite for the Latin program, Encuentro en el Estudio. To date, it’s his best performance of the Brokeback Mountain score (and I’ve watched them all). The guitar tone is gorgeous. You’ll notice […]

The Wings The Wings completes my arrangements for the Oscar winning Brokeback Mountain Soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. This song is what initially drew me into Gustavo Santaolalla’s film score work, way back in 2005. The film was very controversial then, and I remember cleaning my […]

Brokeback Mountain 3 Brokeback Mountain 3 is an achingly beautiful piece of music from Gustavo Santaolalla’s Academy award winning Brokeback Mountain score – most of which was played on a single solitary acoustic guitar. ‘Wings’ is the most memorable theme from Brokeback Mountain. However, the […]

Brokeback Mountain 2 The Brokeback Mountain score is initially what introduced me to Gustavo Santaolalla’s music in 2005 — for which he won the first of his back-to-back Academy Awards. The minimalist approach and solitary delivery of a lone acoustic guitar was unlike anything we […]

Opening If you’ve been a reading my blog for any length of time, it’s not hard to figure out that I’m a Gustavo Santaolalla superfan. It all started with the Brokeback Mountain score: acoustic guitar, empty space, minimalism. I had never heard anything like it.  […]

Brokeback Mountain Gustavo Santaolalla’s score for Brokeback Mountain is a masterpiece of cinematic music. It perfectly complements the film’s poignant and tragic love story. By using sparse, two-note intervals, Santaolalla lets the guitar’s resonance to all of the work — capturing the isolation, and longing […]

Snow Snow (Brokeback Mountain) is emblematic of Gustavo Santaolalla’s minimalist, and egoless songwriting. There’s an unusual dissonant chord position at the end of each cycle. It catches you off guard. While Santaolalla is probably following his ear when writing music, he has a proclivity for […]

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 […]