Charleston Girl Tyler Childers is often described as a “neotraditional” country artist. His soulful, Appalachian sound blends elements of bluegrass, folk, and even R&B. Childers’ lyrics often explore themes of rural life, and the human experience. While I love nearly all of his music, “Charleston […]

El Paso El Paso is beautiful little étude for Spanish guitar. The piece is by composer, Harry Gregson-Williams, from the 2004 film, Man on Fire. The film starred Denzel Washington as “Creasey” a washed up former special forces operator, who takes a gig as the […]

Silent Night Silent Night originated in Austria in 1818. It was written as a poem, “Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!”, by Joseph Mohr, a young priest in the town of Oberndorf. The melody was composed by Franz Xaver Gruber, a schoolteacher and organist in the nearby […]

21 Grams I completely lifted my right-hand technique from composer, Gustavo Santaolalla. He effectively arpeggiates chord shapes by rolling through them with his fingers. This is a beautiful way to voice chords, and pretty easy to do with a little practice. The best way to […]

Finding the Master “At first the music almost repelled me, it was so intense, and this man (Robert Johnson) made no attempt to sugarcoat what he was trying to say, or play. It was hard-core, more than anything I had ever heard. After a few […]

Spanish Arpeggios and Trills An étude is a short musical composition designed as an exercise to improve a specific technique or demonstrate a particular skill. This arpeggio exercise was a section from a mediocre song I wrote years ago. However, I feel this riff is […]

Tin Can I wrote this song for a film I was working on last year. (I was let go of the project.) However, I kept all of the music to release on my blog and SoundCloud. Even though the film didn’t work out for me, […]