[Updated 4/21/22]
Wind River and the destiny of Taylor Sheridan
Wind River is a modern western (disguised as a crime thriller) written and directed by Taylor Sheridan.
His “thematic trilogy” of films (Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind River) explore the modern American West as a constricting landscape for it’s inhabitants. The characters have been chiseled from culture and policy dating back 130 years.
[Wind River is one of the best movies you’ll ever see. My wife and I were riveted from the start to the violent finale.]
Taylor Sheridan is fascinating to me, because his life as a screenwriter began when he was 40. Sheridan’s acting career had a crescendo with his role as officer David Hale on Sons of Anarchy. When he was offered even less money to resume his role on SOA, he quit and pursued his destiny for screenwriting. This seemed like a risky move, as his wife was pregnant at the time, and they were living in an apartment in Los Angeles.
Essentially, Sheridan was scratching his own itch. He had read underwhelming scripts for 20 years as an actor, and knew that he could do better. He had stories to tell. What followed were the Oscar nominated scripts for Sicario, and Hell or High Water. Taylor Sheridan didn’t even like acting all that much in the first place. His story is a lesson for all of us: you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well pursue your passion anyway.
As it turns out, he would have jeopardized his family’s financial future had he stayed in a mediocre acting “career”.
There’s a great interview with Taylor Sheridan in Vulture.
You might also like to play…
Wind River: Feather | fingerstyle guitar + TAB
Jason Isbell: Pancho & Lefty | fingerstyle guitar + TAB
Those Who Wish Me Dead | fingerstyle guitar + TAB
Gear Used
For Wind River, I used my cheap Alvarez AC-65. You can find a current list of my gear here.
My music
You can find my personal music on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, and all streaming services:
The Intellimusica Spotify Playlist: Ethereal & Cinematic Guitar
Deep cuts from artists like Gustavo Santaolalla, Hans Zimmer, Jeff Buckley, and Radiohead – combine to create a heady flow of music for focus, meditation, and self-reflection. This is a Guitar focused (but not exclusive) playlist that elicits the emotional, captivating quality of modern film scores.
[This playlist is curated and updated by me. It’s music that I’ve played and intend to play on Intellimusica.]
How to play the Wind River Theme for guitar
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Composer’s Nick Cave and Warren Ellis split time between The Bad Seeds, and creating scores for films like: Hell or High Water, The Road, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
Their minimalist music is a perfect match for Sheridan’s austere landscapes — as Cave and Ellis are very good at creating unassuming dread. The Wind River Theme is ostensibly known as: Snow Wolf, Hunter, and First Body from the Wind River score. It is very easy to play, and a perfect song for all guitar players — beginners and up. Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:
The guitar tab is barely two pages, with a long passage that you’ll repeat twice.
Wind River is tuned a whole step down with your 6th and 5th string tuned an additional step down. Your tuning is as follows from low to high: C F C F A D. This is rather low, so you could do: D G D G B E. It will sound just fine.