Author: Ian Temple

  • How to Write a Musical: The History of Musicals

    How to Write a Musical: The History of Musicals

    This is part 1 of a series on how to write a musical. If you can’t wait to start writing, jump forward to the purpose of the music or how to select song posts! A few weeks ago, I had drinks with a buddy of mine who’s writing a musical about an undercooked piece of pasta named Al Dente. He’s…

    Read more

  • How to Make Music with Flip Flops, Bicycles and Tin Cans

    How to Make Music with Flip Flops, Bicycles and Tin Cans

    At Soundfly, we’re all about finding your sound, so when we set out to make a promo video, it made perfect sense to find our sounds in unexpected places. The idea also seemed to work well with one of our other beliefs—that anyone can be a musician because there’s no one right way to play…

    Read more

  • Eunbi Kim on the Vulnerability of Performance

    Eunbi Kim on the Vulnerability of Performance

    Eunbi Kim is a classical pianist with a flare for chasing down some pretty unexpected projects and, in the process, flipping the typical path of a concert performer right on its head. When I first met Eunbi, she had just returned from premiering Murakami Music in Houston, TX to rave reviews (like this one in the Houston Chronicle). Her multidisciplinary project explores the…

    Read more

  • Listening to Music in a Way That Supports Musicians

    Listening to Music in a Way That Supports Musicians

    You’re a nice person. You love music. You’ve never stolen anything before in your life. Yet somehow, if you’re anything like me, it seems like you can’t listen to music today without falling into a giant moral quagmire. Am I supporting the artists enough? Which service should I use to listen to this new track?…

    Read more

  • Lessons Learned from Throwing a Big Concert in NYC

    Lessons Learned from Throwing a Big Concert in NYC

    About a month and a half ago, we decided, along with our friends at (le) poisson rouge, to throw a different sort of concert. So often, I find myself going to shows where the audience feels like an after-thought — a necessary prop to fulfill the musicians’ goals of playing in public rather than the…

    Read more

  • Chesney Snow on the Life of an Artist

    Chesney Snow on the Life of an Artist

    Chesney Snow is a poet, a songwriter, a beatboxer, an actor, but most of all, he’s an artist through and through. Talking to him can feel a little like receiving a sermon from a beatboxing prophet of some sort, as he waxes lyrical about life as an artist today and the power of art to…

    Read more

  • Dissecting Rob Cantor’s Masterpiece “Shia Labeouf”

    Dissecting Rob Cantor’s Masterpiece “Shia Labeouf”

    If you’re anything like us, you’ve watched Rob Cantor’s absurdly operatic tale of Shia Labeouf’s cannibalism and ultimate defeat 100 times by now. Clearly, there’s so much that makes this video just next level — from the aerial ribbon dancers to the actor himself appearing at the end like a half crazed serial killer pondering…

    Read more

  • Gillian Jackson on Slayerkitty and Animal-Themed Wedding Songs

    Gillian Jackson on Slayerkitty and Animal-Themed Wedding Songs

    Whenever I check in with my friend Gillian Jackson, she’s into something new. Currently, it’s teaching rock to children, scoring films, and playing scream metal (I don’t know if that’s how she’d classify it, but it definitely has screaming in it). Before that, it was neo-classical music, museum tours, and working with snakes and other woodland…

    Read more

  • Announcing Soundfly Sessions

    Announcing Soundfly Sessions

    Buy Your Tickets Here Soundfly is throwing its very first concert— Soundfly Sessions. We’re hosting it on January 28 at the eclectic New York City music venue (le) poisson rouge in Greenwich Village, a stage that’s seen such stupendous acts as Lorde, Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Paul Simon, Erykah Badu, and like a million others.…

    Read more

  • Welcome to Soundfly’s New Web Magazine: Flypaper

    Welcome to Soundfly’s New Web Magazine: Flypaper

    A year or so ago, I felt in a rut musically. I’d just gotten back from tour and was totally spent. I’d been playing the same songs over and over again and couldn’t really move on. I needed to branch out, a way to inject originality and creativity back into my work. Basically, I was…

    Read more