The Weird and Creepy World of String Harmonics
Experimenting with string harmonics can lend an eerie, etherial sound to your compositions. Here’s how to get started.
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Rock Legend June Millington: Study the Blues, Be Empathetic, and Run Your Own PA
It’s 8pm on a Wednesday evening, and a pixelated June Millington waits patiently on Skype as I pull up a write-up of her massive autobiography, Land of a Thousand Bridges (published by No Depression). As I scroll through the summary of the 500+ page book, I realize with some trepidation I’m about to interview a…
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Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy: Body Styles
Welcome to the Fundamentals of Guitar Anatomy. This is a four-part lecture, so take your seats, bust out your axe and grab a magnifying glass, because we’re going to examine all the ways your guitar’s sound can take shape through design and hardware (if you’re ready for next-level sound sculpting, try adding some pedals). First, I’d…
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Finding Your Ideal Guitar Tone: Guitar Pedals
There isn’t a single guitarist who can possibly keep track of all the different pedals that are on the market today. With hundreds of boutique companies surfacing just in the last ten years, we know that the challenge isn’t finding cool pedals, but figuring out which ones are right for us, so let’s break down…
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Entrepreneurship in Music: Third Side Music
Entrepreneurship in Music Series: 007 THIRD SIDE MUSIC Founder, A&R, and VP Finance Jeff Waye Splitting his time between Los Angeles and Montréal, Jeff Waye started Third Side Music (TSM) after years of running the famed independent electronic music label, Ninja Tune. Third Side Music is now celebrating its tenth year and…
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The Art of Being an Organized Guitarist
If you’ve ever wondered how to cross the line from being a good to a great guitarist, you’ve probably already identified some key factors to focus on — mastery of technique, the quality of your gear, and learning to adopt different performative styles. But I wouldn’t start with any of those — I would start with organization. I have studied the…
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Pauline Oliveros Made Me a Better Listener
We know more about hearing than listening. Sound is sound, and all sound can be music. There is virtue and scholarship in all sounds, all music, but we aren’t listening to it. We might be hearing it, but we aren’t listening. We as musicians and music lovers find ourselves forming cliques. We congregate in venues,…
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Elliott Sharp’s Essential Guide to Being Elliott Sharp
By Elliott Sharp Editor’s note: For many years, I’ve been challenged and inspired by the work of Elliott Sharp, who has etched a place as one of America’s most dynamic modern composers. He’s hard to pin down both musically and literally, since he regularly travels the world for performance, recording, commissions, and likely a bit…
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What Exactly Does “Producer” Mean, Anyway?
+ Learning to record and mix at home? Check out Soundfly’s acclaimed online courses on mixing, production, and beat making — Subscribe for unlimited access. Music production. The term likely conjures mythical images of Sir George Martin running frantically around Abbey Road Studios, or Phil Spector conducting a massive orchestra. In their time, the term “record…
