I remember the first time I tried writing a song — it was a mess. I had no idea where to start, no idea how to come up with melodies (let alone match them with lyrics), and no idea what to write about. Songwriting can be an extremely daunting mountain to tackle if you’ve never written…
Need a boost of inspiration? Try any of these fool-proof chord progressions to jumpstart your writing process.
Here at Soundfly, we encourage everyone to work towards finding their own musical voice, and improvise on top of anything. But did you know, in many states you could be fined, or even arrested, for embellishing on the national anthem? To celebrate the Fourth of July, and America’s tradition of going against the rules, here…
In order to create all the videos, resources and course assets for our popular Mainstage course, Orchestration for Strings, we worked closely with the incredible young composer, Ian Davis, who writes and arranges in the band, Landlady as well as his solo project Relatives, and has composed for such notable acts as My Brightest Diamond. Specifically for the course,…
If you’ve seen Easy A, you probably remember the scene where Emma Stone receives a card that plays Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful of Sunshine” and how Stone’s character hates the song — at first. Flash forward to a few days later, and she can’t stop singing it. There are songs that we can’t stand, yet can’t get out…
Songwriting is a cathartic, stimulating, and back-and-forth process. When inspiration really sinks in, it’s incredible what we’re capable of creating. And after channeling that inspiration into a new song, there’s a strong feeling of purpose and secure creative identity. We can, however, often sit around waiting for that moment to happen. Writer’s block is one…
This is part 3 of a series on how to write a musical. Start from the beginning with a brief history of musicals and explore the role of the music in telling the story. The basic question we’re looking at today is: when writing a musical, where do you begin? First of all, it’s important to know the purpose that…
Anyone who knows me at all knows how much I love Pixar films. The Incredibles is still one of my favorite all-time movies. Ratatouille made me see the world differently. Up had me balling like a child within the first ten minutes. And no small part of that was the music. I only recently found out…
This is part 2 of a series on how to write a musical. Start from the beginning with a brief history of musicals or jump forward to learn how to select song posts! This is part 2 of our series on how to write a musical, inspired by a friend’s efforts to write a musical about an undercooked piece of pasta named Al…
What Makes You Different? As a musician who loves music, I see a ton of shows, and a ton of really good shows. In recent weeks, I’ve been blown away by how many amazing singers I’ve had the good fortune to see — people with deep, silky voices, or high, falsetto voices, or bluesy, soulful voices.…
