Anyone who knows me at all knows how much I love Pixar films. The Incredibles is still one of my favorite all-time movies. Ratatouille made me see the world differently. Up had me balling like a child within the first ten minutes. And no small part of that was the music. I only recently found out…
This is part 2 of a series on how to write a musical. Start from the beginning with a brief history of musicals or jump forward to learn how to select song posts! This is part 2 of our series on how to write a musical, inspired by a friend’s efforts to write a musical about an undercooked piece of pasta named Al…
Legendary bluesman B.B. King died yesterday, and we’ll miss him. His bright, bouncy guitar licks and gospel-influenced vocals were iconic — even if you hadn’t listened to him in a while, his music was universal. Dig deep enough and everyone has a B.B. King memory. King was our last living thread to the golden age of Mississippi…
We at Soundfly love the piano. In many ways, it’s the Mother of Modern Instruments, a musical Khaleesi that’s ruled the stage for hundreds of years. Since its birth in the 1700s, the piano has appeared in almost every style of music you can think of — jazz, rock, classical, blues, cat music — and been played…
Dr. Victoria Williamson still remembers the first time she saw the brain scan of someone who was listening to their favorite piece of music. The scan showed a scene of intense activation — it looked like the entire brain was lit up and buzzing. The moment confirmed something she’s always believed and has since spent…
Allen Tate is best known for his distinctively baritone serenades as one of the lead vocalists for San Fermin. Their self-titled first album was released in 2013 to rave reviews. It is an operatic musical journey of serious proportions, not least because of the full complement of orchestral instruments they employ, but also the male…
A couple weeks ago I got an email out of the blue from Sophie Chernin of Brooklyn band Madam West. Little did I know at the time that I was just part of her daily ritual—send one press email, one booking email, and one studio or engineer email every day. In fact, the more I…
The music world is up in arms. In case you’ve been living under a rock, here’s what happened: Last week a jury decided that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had violated the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” with their hit song “Blurred Lines”. The song made $16.67 million dollars, so the songwriters…
What Makes You Different? As a musician who loves music, I see a ton of shows, and a ton of really good shows. In recent weeks, I’ve been blown away by how many amazing singers I’ve had the good fortune to see — people with deep, silky voices, or high, falsetto voices, or bluesy, soulful voices.…
These days, it seems like anywhere you turn you encounter prophecies of doom about the state of modern music. Label execs with money on their minds see shrinking sales and panic. Tastmakers see hit factories churning out the same songs again and again and decry the end of creative expression. But from our vantage point, we…
