Category: Features

  • Understanding Advanced Blues Harmony

    Understanding Advanced Blues Harmony

    + 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. The 12-bar blues is the most important structural element in the history of American popular music. Musicians from Louis Armstrong to The White Stripes have used the…

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  • Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy: Strings and Cables

    Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy: Strings and Cables

    We’ve covered so many bases in this guitar breakdown series, I don’t even know if we can keep calling it baseball! But to round back to home, let’s take a look at two more important factors in the overall sound we hear from our instruments — from all the way back in the accessories department at the music…

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  • The Great PRO Round Up: What Is a PRO and Why Should You Affiliate?

    The Great PRO Round Up: What Is a PRO and Why Should You Affiliate?

    If you’re a songwriter or a creator-of-musical-goods, then you’ve probably heard someone reference a PRO before. It might have sounded like music industry jargon, which, technically, it is… Or perhaps you’re already familiar with the concept of a PRO but are unsure of which one to join and where to start. Well, this article is…

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  • Uncovering the Jazz Influence in Pop, Rock, and Hip-Hop Classics

    + Bridge the worlds of theory, improvisation, and jazzy hip-hop, and improve your piano chops with Grammy-winner Kiefer in his course, Kiefer: Keys, Chords, & Beats. Jazz music is daunting to wrap one’s ears around. It is safe to say most Americans have a complicated relationship with one of our oldest art forms. Jazz is chronically…

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  • Compact Discs as Expanded Instruments: Pioneers of Hacked CD Sound Art

    Compact Discs as Expanded Instruments: Pioneers of Hacked CD Sound Art

    History and Context of the CD The Compact Disc (CD) was introduced into commercial ubiquity on October 1, 1982, alongside the world’s first-ever CD player, the SONY CDP-101. Billy Joel’s sixth studio album, 52nd Street, was selected to be the first recording issued on this new digital audio format, which is hilarious considering that particular…

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  • How to Improve at Writing Music by Hand

    How to Improve at Writing Music by Hand

    The most confusing part of reading a handwritten score is the fact that music spacing and phrasing are not always considered when writing.

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  • Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy: Pickups

    Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy: Pickups

    Welcome back to Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy, my four-part series examining the literal ins and outs of your electric guitar. So far, we’ve covered wood types and body styles, and today I’d like to cover all the different kinds of pickups available at your disposal, how they work and how they create different tonal shapes. An…

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  • Sampling as Instrumentation: How Recorded Noise Found Its Way Into Music

    Sampling as Instrumentation: How Recorded Noise Found Its Way Into Music

    + Learn to create and arrange original, instrumental hip-hop music from sampling pioneer RJD2 himself in his new course on Soundfly, RJD2: From Samples to Songs. When we turn on the radio to any pop station, we hear sampling. When we utilize any MIDI instrument technology within our DAWs and hardware, we hear sampling. It’s everywhere, and it’s due…

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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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  • Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy: Wood Types

    Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy: Wood Types

    Welcome back to Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy, my multi-part series examining the ins and outs of your electric guitar. In the last lecture, we talked about body styles, and that knowledge will help you to grasp this one, as we’re going to be talking about the different types of wood used for guitars and their effect. The…

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Jlin: Rhythm, Variation, & Vulnerability