All Articles

  • Entrepreneurship in Music: Tom Tom Magazine

    Entrepreneurship in Music: Tom Tom Magazine

          Entrepreneurship in Music Series: 010 TOM TOM MAGAZINE Founder and Publisher Mindy Seegal Abovitz Tom Tom is, to the best of my knowledge, the only print magazine in the world focusing solely on women drummers and female drumming culture. It was founded in Brooklyn in 2009, and somehow in this age of dying…

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  • Get the Guitar Sound You Want: Cheat Sheet for EQs, Wahs, and Filter Effects

    Get the Guitar Sound You Want: Cheat Sheet for EQs, Wahs, and Filter Effects

    Now that we’ve covered dynamic– and distortion-based effects, it’s time to start playing with the actual shape of your sound. From subtle EQ tweaks to dramatic filters, this is where we start really delving into reshaping and altering your tone. These effects can be used to add expression and character to your playing, as well…

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  • Pop Music Theory Analysis: Why Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” Is Surprisingly Hip

    Pop Music Theory Analysis: Why Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” Is Surprisingly Hip

    + Welcome to Soundfly! We help curious musicians meet their goals with creative online courses. Whatever you want to learn, whenever you need to learn it. Subscribe now to start learning on the ’Fly. Top 40 charts typically aren’t where I go to find new music. When I was a younger musician, I’ll admit I saw that as a sort of…

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  • 10 Tips for Making Your Sheet Music More Readable

    10 Tips for Making Your Sheet Music More Readable

    + Welcome to Soundfly! We help curious musicians meet their goals with creative online courses. Whatever you want to learn, whenever you need to learn it. Subscribe now to start learning on the ’Fly. Everyone has lived through a terrible performance of a piece of music. Some songs are beyond help, but far too often a bad performance is a result…

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  • Written in the Field, Transcribed to the Page: A Conversation with Michael Pisaro

    Written in the Field, Transcribed to the Page: A Conversation with Michael Pisaro

    “A composer is somebody who changes the sonic situation… I see composition as basically just a change, because we have to admit that sound is going on all the time.” —Michael Pisaro One of the musical pieces that has undisputedly come to define the last year or so of my life is Michael Pisaro’s 3-disc…

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  • How to Create the Best Ever Cover Song on YouTube

    How to Create the Best Ever Cover Song on YouTube

    Covers are wonderful in so many ways. If you are a new artist, learning to take on a cover song challenges you to learn new material, and offers exposure for your originals. If you are a seasoned artist, adding covers to your routine can help you grow and define yourself as a musician, and give…

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  • How to Avoid Rehearsal Nightmares

    How to Avoid Rehearsal Nightmares

     Most of us have a few horror stories involving raised voices, fallen tears, or temper tantrums. There was a time when I thought bad rehearsals were just one of the growing pains every band has to go through — as though a group wasn’t legit until someone kicked over a music stand. Thankfully, I have since…

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  • Road Diaries: On Tour with “PostSecret: The Show”

    Road Diaries: On Tour with “PostSecret: The Show”

    Greetings from the lobby of the Hyatt Place Hotel in College Station, Texas. I’m Deen and I’m the guitarist for the touring production of PostSecret: The Show — actually, I’m the only musician performing in the show. We are one week into the tour, after having spent two weeks rehearsing and previewing in Charlotte, with performances…

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  • So You Think You Can Dance Buildup?

    So You Think You Can Dance Buildup?

    So, you think you know EDM. You’ve been listening to all the latest players in the electronic music world, and you think you know what they’re all about — the unique, infinitesimal nuances of sub-genre that distinguish one from another. What you may not know is that all of these artists in almost all forms of…

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  • 8 Ways to Improve Your Improvisational Skills Right Now

    8 Ways to Improve Your Improvisational Skills Right Now

    Improvisation is a complex beast to tackle. You can’t go about the process by just “making it up.” If it seems to you like that’s all Miles Davis is doing when he plays, keep in mind that the best improvisers are the ones who manage to create an illusion of effortlessness, but actually put meticulous…

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Unlocking the Emotional Power of Chords