Afrobeat is as eclectic as it is mesmerizing. Its roots stem from a few different areas geographically, socially, and musically. Genres such as jazz and funk, which were defined and carved out by black Americans who came of age during the Civil Rights Movement, helped contribute to its improvised foundation and its generally elastic nature.…
Welcome back to the dance floor, Quick Trackers! Once a month, we hook you up with a short production or songwriting challenge, aimed at helping to up your musicianship. To respond to the challenge, just email us, leave a comment, or post to social media with the hashtag #quicktracks and tag us @learntosoundfly. This week, we’ve got another…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GnSg4Legk0 The above video appears in Ari Herstand’s new, free course, How to Get All the Royalties You Never Knew Existed, on Soundfly. Ari’s hand gestures aside, what we just saw in the video above is really, really important if you’re a singer-songwriter or performing artist who writes and performs your own work. So many artists miss…
Submitting your music to sync placements, but not getting the call back? Here are some helpful pieces of advice to get your music to the top of the pile.
It’s a great time to be a musician! With all the tools available these days, there’s a ton of ways to publicize and sell music online. Here’s just a few.
Most mistakes Patrick McGuire sees fellow musicians make are totally avoidable, so here’s a guide to getting ahead and not sabotaging your own career.
In celebration of the launch of the latest addition to our Chiptune Crash Course series, “Chip It: The Chiptune Cover Challenge,” we decided to turn the course’s assignment into an open competition for aspiring and active music makers from around the chipiverse. Alongside contest judges (and chip stars) Chipocrite, glomag, and minusbaby, we asked artists to submit their own,…
So many artists want instant gratification: to shoot to fame before working hard to create something meaningful. It’s understandable, musicians today are forced to compare themselves to artists who have won a certain level of “overnight success.” But even those overnight-success-story artists have probably put in a ton of work behind the scenes over the years…
By Nicholas Rubright In today’s environment where music is consumed mostly from streaming and free sources, making money from music sales seems like a thing of the past. CD sales were replaced by downloads fees, which are now being replaced by royalties from music streaming, often worth less than the checks they’re written on. While free…
+ Bridge the worlds of theory, improvisation, and jazzy hip-hop, and improve your piano chops with Grammy-winner Kiefer in his course, Kiefer: Keys, Chords, & Beats. When it comes to music, balancing invention and convention is like baking the perfect cake. Artists that deviate too far from an already established sound run the risk of becoming…
Take a tour of 5 important copyright infringement cases in music history to learn about the decisions that helped shape how we look at songwriting today.
Exploring the wacky career and curatorial escapades of one of New York’s most important musical directors, despite Willner never becoming a household name.
What’s the difference between a writer’s share and a publisher’s share, and why is it important to control your own publishing rights? Find out here.
Lester William Polsfuss, the given name of guitar-maker Les Paul, was a legend. His technological innovations, as a result of a sheer addiction to tinkering, were vast. They include multi-track recording, overdubbing (which he famously called “sound on sound“), tape delay, reverb, phase effects, and “the log,” more commonly known as the solid-body electric guitar.…
Every songwriter knows that painful moment: Staring at a blank page, unsure of what to write. But I believe it’s much worse to stare at a half-finished song. You desperately try to think of what to do next, yet still feel locked into the style, chords, and rhythms that you have already established. It can seem hopeless at times to continue a…
+ Learn the nuances of producing beats, arranging tracks, and creative sampling, drawing on the rich history and influence of hip-hop in Soundfly’s acclaimed online course, The Art of Hip-Hop Production. Between the old-school sound of his debut album, College Dropout, in 2004 and the ultra-synthesized feel of his most recent album, 2016’s The Life Of Pablo, there…
In this climate of increasing lawsuits, protecting your intellectual musical property is becoming an essential tool in the songwriter’s toolkit. Learn more.
Perhaps inspired by the recent rash of high-profile copyright cases, a bunch of our favorite music blogs have lately been providing interesting tips for legally recording and performing covers of other musician’s songs. Unlike the more complicated forms of musical imitation involved in those lawsuits, covering a song is actually quite straightforward. A “cover” is a new performance of…
It can often be the last thing you think of as a musician, album or single cover art, but it can be easy and fun to design it yourself!
In today’s very special edition of Student Spotlight, a songwriter, producer, and educator seeking to help kids memorize through music.
Looking for a cure to the dreaded “Second Album Syndrome”? Look no further than Public Enemy’s brilliant 1988 sophomore release for answers.
Like many historically significant Japanese things (Zen Buddhism, character writing, the kimono, temple architecture), the shakuhachi originated in China. And while, like the parenthetically aforementioned items on this list, the shakuhachi can claim Chinese origin, over the course of its history, it has diverged and evolved quite differently from its Chinese relative, the xiao. The shakuhachi is an…
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…
If you’re stranded at home and have lost sources of income due to the Covid-19 pandemic, here’s a short list of potential musician revenue streams for you.
Phil Elverum, based in Washington state and best known for his musical projects The Microphones and Mount Eerie, has trafficked and produced prolifically in all manner of medium: song composition and production, letterpress printing, photography, filmmaking, and last but not least endearing, a 365-day comic calendar called Fancy People Adventures. He has also effectively retained the…
