(I originally posted this piece in 2018. It’s one of my favorites, so I redid the performance with my current recording standards. No one will know the difference, just me.)
Yellowstone
Free audio download on SoundCloud.
Yellowstone is a Paramount TV series written and directed by Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River). Kevin Costner plays John Dutton, a father trying to protect his ranch, the largest in the United States, from land developers, and a neighboring Indian reservation.
Taylor Sheridan is one of those writer/directors where I’m frequently checking his IMDb page. I can’t get enough of his characters and backdrops.
I really love this opening theme and sequence. The music by composer, Brian Tyler, has a slight Spanish characteristic to it — so I knew the chord progression would easily work on guitar. The music dips into some dissonant sounding chord shapes that I thought were very compelling. I’m excited to borrow those ideas for my own music.
You can find more pieces like this in my 2 Minute Classical Guitar Archive.
You might also like to play…
Hell or High Water: theme for guitar + TAB
Wind River: theme for guitar + TAB
Wind River: Feather (closing song) + TAB
Gear Used
For this piece, I used my Cordoba Gk Studio guitar. It’s a crystal clear and beautiful sounding guitar. You can find a list of my current gear here.
My music
You can find my personal music on Spotify, Apple, 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.
How to play the Yellowstone theme for guitar
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The guitar tab for Yellowstone is beautifully written across a single page. Although there’s some Gustavo Santaolalla-esque trills in my arrangement — the piece is under two minutes — making it doable for beginner guitarists and up. Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:
The guitar tab is only 1 page long, and is comprised of a single long passage that you’ll play twice. The repeated section is within the |: repeat :| brackets.
Yellowstone: opening theme for guitar
The Yellowstone theme is played in standard tuning. Although, I’m using a capo on the 2nd fret, you can play it without a capo, or in any capo position you’d like.
