Poetry offers a great starting place for developing lyric ideas, but poetry and songs don’t always flow the same way — here’s how to tell if it’s working.
How to Streamline Your Songwriting and Production Processes
Some helpful tips for songwriters, producers, and those who do both, looking to improve their workflow and get more focused work done in shorter sessions.
Building Your Confidence as a Songwriter
Action always invariably beats inaction; here’s a set of tools to help you battle your lacking confidence, and create with active fervor!
Notes on the Birth of a Melody
From Soundfly Student Eva Grill, a beautiful reflection on where inspiration for melodic ideas comes from, and where it takes her when she follows it.
Practical Advice From Our Experts: Beating Writer’s Block
Writer’s block can strike anyone at any time. Here’s a list of our most helpful approaches to battling through creative blockages of all kinds.
Practical Advice From Our Experts: Song Form Basics
Your songs should take listeners to exciting destinations and tell exciting stories, but in order to do that they need a lyrical road map: Song Form.
How to Make Chords from Scales
Learning to read or write music? Here’s a quick guide to making chords within the various scales and modes you might encounter in music theory.
A Harmonic Analysis of Michael Jackson’s Protest Song “They Don’t Care About Us”
Through means of Dancehall rhythms, modal interchange, and ostinato, Michael Jackson gives us glimpses of Black American heritage in his protest song.
On Decoda’s ‘Music For Transformation’ – A Collaborative Songwriting Program
Read about an incredible project that pairs a NYC string quartet with inmates at a South Carolina prison, where the results and changes go both ways.
How to Approach Songwriting Prompts (and Soundfly’s Course Prompts)
Writing to creative briefs and prompts is a great way to challenge and optimize your instincts as a songwriter. We can help with that.