Have you heard Macklemore and Kesha’s recent duet, “Good Old Days”? It’s got a main theme everyone can relate to: “why, oh why, did I take those days gone by for granted?” The video features some pretty universal moments as well, just driving through the woods in a van at various states of chill along…
+ 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. Whether you’re making pop, hip-hop, or EDM, chances are your music is going to include sub-bass. For those who aren’t familiar, sub-bass frequencies are low-pitched notes below approximately…
+ Learning to record and mix at home? Soundfly’s online courses on mixing, producing, and beat making can help! Preview them all for free and subscribe for full access. One of the most essential mixing tips when working with low frequencies is to exercise the “less is more” approach. These days, low frequencies are more pronounced than ever…
A canon (or round) is a single melody line that provides a counterpoint to itself. Canons can, at times, feel lighthearted and happy go lucky (“Row, Row, Row Your Boat” or “Frere Jacques” for example), but even the simplest sounding pieces require careful attention and are difficult to craft well, especially where more than two voices are…
Hi Flypaper readers! You may have noticed that things are looking a little bit different around here. We’ve been hard at work of a redesign of Flypaper and we’re excited to get to show off our new look! Most of the major changes to the site will be happening today, Monday, March 6th; and we’ll be…
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was arguably the most well-known and influential Japanese composer of the 20th century. In addition to composing prolifically for the orchestra, Takemitsu wrote many chamber works, solo guitar music, electro-acoustic pieces (incorporating the use of magnetic tape loops and found sounds), a number of pieces that feature soloists playing traditional Japanese instruments…
2016 is, finally, coming to an end. After an exhausting year like this one, I love looking ahead to New Year’s Eve. Not just because I love champagne and countdowns, but because it’s that special time of year to break out the new planner and set some goals in stone. This time of year is perfect for…
Last week, Apple announced the release of the iPhone 7, among other new products and partnerships. The phone features innovative additions such as water resistant technology, dual lens cameras for professional quality photo and video, and sleek new design tweaks to the screen and phone body. Yet you’ve probably heard that something very noticeable will be missing from the new…
By Rebecca Redman I moved to the Bay Area from a town where there were only two places to play shows — a garage and a supper club. Unless you could convince someone to let you plug in your amplifier in their living room, choices were slim. Moving up to the Bay Area came with a dramatic…
You’ve decided how you want to brand yourself online. You’ve created your band’s social media pages. You’re posting regularly, and still, you’re not seeing results. The solution: content planning. By putting all of your energy into posting new content without thinking about the big picture, you’re only getting half the job done. Instead, set marketing goals,…
The Rolling Stones’ classic hit “Sympathy for the Devil” is one of my all-time favorite songs — it’s unique in almost every way. The material it mines is fairly unexplored in popular music, particularly with the lyrics from the perspective of the Devil (which led to the perception of Mick Jagger and his gang as Devil worshippers…
Welcome back to my four-part series of articles on How Successful Musicians Practice. If you’re just joining us now, this is the third installment, so if songwriting and composition aren’t ultimately your areas of interest, feel free to peruse the practice regimes of either these seriously successful percussionists or these 4, 5 and 6-string samurai! To briefly…
If you’re tired of spending your hard-earned cash on hiring other people to record your demos, the logical next step is to set up your own recording studio at home. If that sounds daunting, it really shouldn’t. You can do so much with so little these days, and as time goes on, you can expand your gear…
Settle down, class, and take your seats. Bobby, what did I say about chewing gum? Alright. Now that we’re all settled in, let’s talk about sound. Today we’re going to address concepts relating to sound traveling through, getting lost in, and accumulating within airspace. Much of how we perceive our surrounding environment is influenced by our…
Here at Soundfly HQ, we’re always sharing new music with each other. But this year was so full of distractions — losing so many of our musical heroes, saying goodbye to arguably our most musical president, the music and media worlds being swept up in the madness of the election — that it’s been easy to forget about…
Over the last two years, Soundfly’s courses have become a crystal ball, letting us see into the future of who we’ll all be listening to as new waves of artists and bands float up to the forefront. We hear it time and time again from artists: In order to make it, musicians today need to…
+ Learning to record and mix at home? Check out Soundfly’s acclaimed online courses on mixing, production, and beat making — Subscribe for unlimited access. Unless you’re recording to high-fidelity magnetic tape or into a four-track recording device, your digital audio workstation (DAW) is a critical element of your home studio. You don’t need a giant mixing…
This year, we introduced the first ever annual edition of The Flypaper Writer Awards, a.k.a. “The Flypies” in order to reward the writers who produced the most successful articles throughout 2016, across a wide array of categories. And if that sounds boring, well… Just watch the video. We had some fun with it! So, without further ado, here are…
Over my years in the music industry, I’ve seen many, many live shows, both from the stage and from the audience. This means I’ve seen bands make the same mistakes time and time again. And because I’m guilty of making these mistakes too, I created lists of some of the ways bands can avoid these pitfalls without too much effort. These…
+ Pursue your next music 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. By Andrew Apanov Twitter is all about the details. Very simple by its nature, this micro-blogging platform can also become extremely noisy and confusing if you aren’t using…
Whether you’re working out of a home studio or a small project studio, your Digital Audio Workstation (or, DAW) is probably the single most important part of your setup. It’s the bridge of your musical Starship Enterprise, containing and co-ordinating all the software and hardware you use to create and communicate each of your decisions. It’s…
In most ensembles, a combination of drums, bass, guitar, percussion, and keys make up the rhythm section, which provides the rhythmic and harmonic direction of the band. Particularly for bass and drums, one of the most challenging things to understand is how to interact with each other to make music that achieves something specific. When…
By Sarah Manning In an interview with the Rutherford Institute in 2012, journalist, author, and jazz critic Nat Hentoff told interviewer John W. Whitehead about some advice Duke Ellington had given him. “Look. Do not categorize about music. You take each musician at the time and open yourself to that musician.” That’s exactly what Nat…
Calling all chiptune geniuses, artists, lovers, and admirers! We are running a one-month contest starting today to win a free modded Game Boy and flash carts (courtesy of Kitsch-Bent!), feedback on your work from chip artist Chipocrite, and promo on Flypaper for your project! Entries will be judged by three of the most beloved chiptune artists on…
Chiptune and cover songs. It seems like a perfect match, right? Who wouldn’t want to hear their favorite artists and hits filtered through their favorite video game console, creating the ultimate nostalgic remix?! Heck, many actual classic games even tried to include lo-fi, “chippified” covers of “real” songs in their gameplay soundtracks with varying degrees of…
