2019’s Oscar Nominated Film Scores Loved Their Chords
And the winner is…. Chords! This year’s Oscar nominees for Best Score put a ton of stock into creating lush chord textures over other attributes.
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A Chord Sequence to Score an Imaginary Film Scene
What if part of your practice as a musician, composer, or producer, was to score an imaginary film scene? How would you tackle that challenge?
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How Scary Film Music Actually Comes Across as “Scary”
From sound design to music theory to auditory phenomena, here are the reasons why horror film score music can actually spook us to death!
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What Are Your Favorite Songs That Lived Beyond the Film?
In honor of our brand new course, Ep. 54 of Themes and Variation finds Carter, Mahea, and Ian discussing “Songs That Lived Beyond the Film.”
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Fear of Success Is Real. Here’s How I Found Out I Had It.
Fear of success seems a bit absurd. We’re all trying to succeed all the time, right? Fear of failure seems logical though; we don’t want to fail… Or do we? My band got into silent film accompaniment about 10 years ago. If you’re not familiar, it’s a show where a live band plays music accompanying…
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What Is Leitmotif, and How Do You Use It? (Video)
Another exclusive video lesson from Soundfly’s Intro to Scoring for Film & TV course, this one on the creative composing power of leitmotif.
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Why You Should Work with One of These 16 Mentors on Your Next Music Project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdy8qQhfTy8 “Buy this course to get 56 hours of content!” If you’ve ever considered taking an online course, you’ve probably seen that line before, or something like it. The problem is that too many online courses and learning experiences mistake quantity for quality. The best way to learn things is not to passively watch endless…
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Being Your Own Cheerleader: An Interview with Ian & Sofia Hultquist
Ian and Sofia Hultquist are LA-based contemporary composers whose work has been featured in the Vogue documentary, The First Monday in May.
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Why Joe Hisaishi’s Music for Studio Ghibli Tugs at Our Heartstrings
A personal reflection on the power of composer Joe Hisaishi’s music, combined with Studio Ghibli’s stories, to enchant and touch the viewer.
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Entrepreneurship in Music: Musicbed
Entrepreneurship in Music Series: 002 Musicbed C.E.O. & Co-founder Daniel McCarthy Founded in 2010, Musicbed is a full-service music licensing platform based in Fort Worth, Texas that provides easy access to a highly curated selection of music to filmmakers worldwide. They believe that relevant music should be accessible and that…
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Talking Points: Ryuichi Sakamoto & Alva Noto Explain Working with Images and Sound
In this edition of “Talking Points,” composers and electronic artists Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto discuss the nature of collaboration and improvisation.
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William Ryan Fritch’s Unusual Path to Film Scoring
William Ryan Fritch is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter who has been making music for film and releasing records professionally for about 7 years. I only came across his music recently but was immediately taken aback by his wide range of sounds and compositional tactics, that despite their different origins, all feel distinctly and familiarly…
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When Film Music Is a Mickey Mouse Operation
What exactly is “mickeymousing,” and how do we know whether it’s a good or bad addition to your musical score? Let’s find out.
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Tredici Bacci’s Simon Hanes on Making Space for Magic to Happen (and the ’70s)
Simon Hanes of NYC’s Tredici Bacci and Guerilla Toss stops by to tell us about his new record, composing Italian funk tunes, and more!
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Speech (Arrested Development) on His Commitment to Recording Artists Behind Bars
We sit down with famed hip-hop MC and producer Speech (of Arrested Development) to talk about his work recording and producing the music of prison inmates.
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Our 10 Favorite Rap Beats of 2018 and Why We Still Love Them
We count down and break down our ten favorite hip-hop beats of 2018 to find out what’s going on inside them and why they’re still so good.
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Listen Up! 5 Films That Put Sound in the Spotlight
Sound is often as much a part of the cinema experience as music, but doesn’t always get to be part of the “plot”—here are 5 films about sound.
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Groundhog Day: How Theme and Variation Connects the Music to the Drama
In this article, we explore how the score music to Groundhog Day uses theme and variation to reflect elements of repetition, cycling, and resolution.
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The Best Guitar Music in the World Is Coming from Agadez
It was late 2009 when I got my first taste of Agadez. Searching a relatively primitive YouTube for new music to explore for an ethnomusicology class, I came across a four-minute clip that would change my perspective on the electric guitar for years to come. Recorded in 2004 by Sublime Frequencies founder Hisham Mayet, the…
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The Most Poetic Lyrics We Heard in Pop Music in 2018
We’ve compiled some of our favorite lyrics to hit the Billboard pop charts last year and isolated them to give them the attention they deserve.
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How Brian Losch Creates Big, Immersive Mixes of Orchestral Film Music
Here’s how pro audio engineer Brian Losch achieves a big, immersive sound mixing cinematic, orchestral film score music.
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What Songs Got You Into Scoring?
In Episode 56, Carter chats with composers Sofia Hultquist (Drum & Lace) and Ian Hultquist about “Songs That Got Me Into Film Scoring.”
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How to Guarantee Your Music Is Heard by a Film/TV Supervisor
Licensing your music for film or television is one of the few sure-fire ways to make money as a musician. But how do you get started?
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5 Compositional Elements That Define the Music of Ennio Morricone
You know these iconic sounds of movie Westerns, now dive deeper into the makeup of Ennio Morricone’s signature works via these five compositional elements.
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When the Music Doesn’t Trust You
When film music becomes continuous wallpaper so aggressively it doesn’t even let the viewers think for themselves, everyone loses.
