Tag: composition

Improve your composition, arranging, and writing with this collection of Soundfly articles full of tips and resources on music composition. For more help, check out Soundfly’s course, Introduction to the Composer’s Craft.

  • Poetry in Motion: Lyrical Layers in Frank Ocean’s Endless

    Poetry in Motion: Lyrical Layers in Frank Ocean’s Endless

    I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but dreams do come true: Frank Ocean has reappeared with not one, but two albums as a follow up to his critically acclaimed 2012 debut, channel ORANGE. The spoils of this past weekend have been in the works since then and were actually expected to arrive in July of last year.…

    Read more

  • Being Your Own Cheerleader: An Interview with Ian & Sofia Hultquist

    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.

    Read more

  • Cracking the Code of Major Scales

    Cracking the Code of Major Scales

    Scales play an integral role in any musician’s artistic vocabulary. They help us understand harmonic and melodic language, even if we aren’t consciously thinking about them all the time. When they’re properly understood, scales can be secret-revealing road maps in a musical journey. But more often than not, they’re treated like robotic exercises and nothing…

    Read more

  • Understanding Advanced Blues Harmony

    Understanding Advanced Blues Harmony

    + 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. The 12-bar blues is the most important structural element in the history of American popular music. Musicians from Louis Armstrong to The White Stripes have used the…

    Read more

  • 4 Tips to Help You Start Writing in Irregular Time Signatures

    4 Tips to Help You Start Writing in Irregular Time Signatures

    With Soundfly Mainstage, you’ll get personalized mentor support and feedback on your work over a six-week course session, whether you’re looking to write music for a string quartet, improve your understanding of composition, or insert more climactic emotion into your harmony, and more! Introducing irregular time signatures into your compositional practice can be a liberating…

    Read more

  • How to Improve at Writing Music by Hand

    How to Improve at Writing Music by Hand

    The most confusing part of reading a handwritten score is the fact that music spacing and phrasing are not always considered when writing.

    Read more

  • 10 Tips for Making Your Sheet Music More Readable

    10 Tips for Making Your Sheet Music More Readable

    + 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. Everyone has lived through a terrible performance of a piece of music. Some songs are beyond help, but far too often a bad performance is a result…

    Read more

  • 10 Epic Collaborations Between Bands and Orchestras

    10 Epic Collaborations Between Bands and Orchestras

    We’re going through an orchestral-indie golden age right now. Here are 10 bands blurring the lines between classical, indie, hip-hop and pop to epic effect.

    Read more

  • What Is a Music Engraver? (And What Does It Take to Become One?)

    What Is a Music Engraver? (And What Does It Take to Become One?)

    Whether you’re a composer or musician dabbling in writing arrangements, creating legible sheet music is an important and often overlooked skill. Some may never be required to learn how to read sheet music, while many others write the bare minimum, creating basic charts for their band and working out the details during rehearsal. But when a professional…

    Read more

  • 6 Memorable Musical Variations on The Star-Spangled Banner

    6 Memorable Musical Variations on The Star-Spangled Banner

    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…

    Read more

Elijah Fox at the piano