Happy Friday! Some of our all-time favorite musical combinations come from artists referencing their idols or putting songs and styles they love into their own musical voice. This week we found remixes and covers all over the web, resulting in genre-bending collaborations that have turned music we thought we knew into something else entirely. Check out Guns…
Here at Soundfly, we’re all about helping people find their voice through music. So much so that our tag line is “Find Your Sound.” This week, we found evidence of people finding their sound all over the internet. From the silly, to the the serious, to the scandalous (Zac Efron personally* stole our slogan to promote his…
Smart touring means covering as many live markets as possible with the smallest amount of overhead. Being able to perform in cities a short distance away from each other saves your band transport costs, time, and energy. On major tours, small cities and college towns are often overlooked in states with big cultural epicenters, but…
Entrepreneurship in Music Series: 004 LANDR Founder, Justin Evans Landr is computerized track-by-track mastering. The team that built MixGenius years ago is back with a new identity and a bold new take on audio with a self-learning algorithmic program that works off of an enormous bank of references, and is trained to…
By Mara Rosenbloom Photos by Nick Lerman Musicians throw around the term “the blues” a lot. Often there seems to be an assumption that we all know — and agree on — what that term means. In a jazz context, say, a jam session, if someone says, “let’s play a blues,” typically the only follow-up…
Exploring the nostalgic secret world of railfans and the universal lessons to be found in a life spent recording the sounds of passing trains.
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.…
+ 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…
The voice is a very versatile instrument — and while most young artists aspire for fame on a global level, as a singer you can do many things. You can become a prima donna in the opera, you can sing at the opening of the World Series, or you can go on a world tour…
Welcome to part 2 in How to Achieve the Perfect Country Twang! In part 1, you learned what the heck “vocal twang” is and how it differentiates from twang in a colloquial sense. Just to recap — vocal twang is a useful vocal technique. It has very little to do with the cat-like, nasal quality that we…
By Briana Marela In many big cities, it can be hard to find someone who actually grew up there. As someone born and raised in Seattle I have seen it change quite a lot over the years, growing and morphing into the tech metropolis it is today. Though I will get nostalgic from time to time, and…
By Sammy Wags Making a power trio, rock quartet, or any standard instrumental formation stand out in an ever growing crowd of great bands can be tough. Adding some subtle flavors and outside influences into the mix can be a great way to spice things up and give listeners something else to latch on to throughout…
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…
Brushy One-String is a Jamaican singer who has become somewhat of a YouTube superstar in the past few years; his songs are inspiring, his energy is magnetic and grand, and he plays a guitar with, you guessed it, only one string. He’s currently touring North America, and in past few years has been able to…
Learn why it’s always helpful to bring in a few commercial recording reference tracks when you’re finishing up a mix, to compare and contrast.
+ Pursue your next social media marketing goal with a Soundfly Mentor like Marta! Soundfly offers four-week mentorship sessions with a pro, customized to you. Get in touch to learn more. Let’s face it: social media permeates the waking lives of people of all ages, demographics, interests, communities, and more. There are distinctive features that allow various popular…
In the latest episode of Soundfly’s podcast, Themes and Variation, Jeremy, Martin, and Mahea discuss “Songs About Science.”
What may be institutionally indefinable, the obscure genre term “indie pop” is considered an umbrella for most of the accessible-yet-alternative pop music being made today by predominantly young, western songwriters. Indie pop is hard to define because it covers an enormous range of sounds, from electronic synth-driven voyages to jangly and reverby guitar-based music, to warm harmonies…
Physical formats have only been around since the 1870s — but in that relatively short amount of time, we’ve managed to come up with some pretty bizarre ways to release music. Each format on this list had its moment of usefulness. But looking back might make you ask “what were we thinking?” Regardless of how obsolete…
+ 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. Songs are almost always built from sections that will feel very familiar, and yet they still have the power to bring us delightful surprises. How songs are put together has varied over the…
+ Soundfly helps curious musicians meet their goals with online courses like The Creative Power of Advanced Harmony and Pop Vocal Production. Whatever you want to learn, whenever you need to learn it. Subscribe for unlimited access. By now you’ve heard the shimmering 24-karat magic that is the remix to Bruno Mars’ “Finesse” featuring Cardi B. It’s playing everywhere, on…
Welcome back to our new series on Flypaper, Album Histories Monthly, which brings you the story of a single album each month, in the month that it was originally released. Last month, we covered The Buggles’ Age of Plastic. This month: Fleetwood Mac – Rumours Release Date: February 4, 1977 “When we started Rumours in early 1976, we were all in…
+ 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. Gaining placement on one of Spotify’s official playlists has become a bit of a Holy Grail to the emerging artist. With streaming taking the front seat to…
In a world fraught with political turmoil, broken up by war, and torn apart by loss, the absurd, lighthearted mountain music of Takeo Ischi more poignant and essential than ever. I mean, if the news has got you down (and how can it not), just take a break and watch this. You’ll feel much better,…
Interested in learning about pro-audio mixing techniques? Preview Soundfly’s online mixing courses, Faders Up I: Modern Mix Techniques and Faders Up II: Advanced Mix Techniques today. Each 6-week course combines tips and perspectives from today’s top sound engineers with 1-on-1 professional mentorship from a Soundfly Mentor. Sign up for either Faders Up course now and take 30% off with promo code: FRIENDOFTHEFLY. We’re…
