Last week, tons of bands got into the spirit of #SongwritingWeek by posting stories of how one of their songs was written or recorded. And in honor of their hard work, we’ve decided to give out a few awards. So drumroll please… the winners are… The Great Nostalgia Award: Exiles (Brooklyn, NY) Kill the Lights by Exiles Exiles…
Young humpbacks these days, all they do is just yell and scat all over the ocean, collaborating with squeaky squids and beat-boxing blowfish, no regard for the fundamentals and true craft of songwriting. For us old baleen bags of blubber, it’s important to develop an appreciation for what makes our song unique, and to honor…
The Broadway musical is such a mélange of parts — often Frankensteined together — that it’s easy to take for granted the weight that each of the creative elements bear. I think ten out of ten composers would agree that songwriting is the most integral of said elements. After all, no music = no musical.…
Most of us have watched and re-watched that Axis of Awesome video by now. If you haven’t, take a moment and do it now. I’ll be here when you’re done. The point that video makes is that countless songs we all know and love are built around the same harmonic changes. There’s nothing wrong with…
+ 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. By Jack McCarthy The art of songwriting is a noble one. The task of storytelling through music, whether fictional or inspired by events in one’s life, is…
+ Improve your songwriting with Soundfly! Explore our range of courses on emotional chord progressions, basic songwriting technique, songwriting for producers, and many more. Subscribe for unlimited access here. Writing creative lyrics is a challenging task. If you want to write for radio, you’ll probably lean towards accessible themes of love with simple, easy-to-digest lyrics. Poetry, as beautiful as it…
This article is being published jointly on Soundfly and Sonicbids in celebration of #SongwritingWeek! My pursuit to become a songwriter started shortly after learning to read words and music twenty-something years ago. Throughout my quest to become better at what I love doing, I’ve studied a wide range of writing styles — both musical and linguistic. Here are five lessons…
By Rowen Bridler The privilege of being a songwriter is that I never know when I’m going to be inspired with a new idea for a song, nor if I will have to push for that inspiration to show up in the first place. Some songs come about easily and others take lots of cajoling.…
If you have a story to tell, then you have something to say with your songwriting, and guitar is your backup instrument. In other words, use your guitar to support your singing. Write your story down and keep your lyric ideas in a folder or binder just for songs. Save them to a folder on…
A while back, Taylor Casey asked if I’d sing some backgrounds on his EP. All I knew about the project was that Taylor — who grew up alongside my baby brother — was a nice, Southern California kid whose love for music brought him to the big city. One of my favorite singers happened to be staying…
