The Last of the Mohicans | fingerstyle guitar
Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash

The Last of the Mohicans

While the film and soundtrack are timeless — the music production was fairly chaotic for The Last of the Mohicans. Director Michael Mann had initially requested that Trevor Jones (composer) provide an electronic score for the film. That surprises me given that it was 1992 and electronic music was passé at that point.

However, late in production, it was decided that an orchestral score would be more appropriate for the historical epic. With limited time, Trevor Jones hurried to rescore the music for an orchestra. The Last of the Mohicans was constantly being re-cut up until the deadline — which meant that Jones’s music cues had to also be rewritten on the fly. Close to the release date, composer Randy Edelman was brought in to score some minor scenes (which Jones did not have time to complete).

While my performance above is the Main Title Theme — the up-tempo variation “Promentory” is also a central cue in the film. Promentory is actually “The Gael” by Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean. Halfway through Promentory, the orchestration of the Main Title is re-introduced on top of The Gael’s Celtic violins.

Musically speaking, that means the Main Title orchestration was written for, and around “The Gael”. Essentially, Dougie MacLean was the impetus for the entire score. He should probably be listed as a composer.

The Last of the Mohicans is a modern classic. The music and film are inextricably linked. It’s amazing how disordered the music production actually was — and that composers execute complicated music under stressful conditions.

[Side note: Although the track is listed as Promentory — the spelling should be Promontory. I’m curious if that was a typo, or if there’s a reason for the “e”.]

You might also like to play…

The Last of the Mohicans: The Kiss | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

Braveheart: A Gift of Thistle | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

Gladiator: Now We Are Free | fingerstyle guitar + TAB

How to play The Last of the Mohicans | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for this piece is beautifully written across a single page. The Main Title is essentially one long passage played twice. While I recommend this song for intermediate guitar players, I qualify it as easy to play. The difficulty is in the agility of switching positions. The chord shapes themselves are relatively simple.

Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:

The Last of the Mohicans | fingerstyle guitar

This piece is played one whole step down: D G C F A D. Or, you could just as easily play it in standard tuning, E A D G B E.