Haruki Murakami is not (quite) a musician, but he has a greater command of music as an art form than most musicians I know, myself included. How is that possible? Read on. Murakami is considered by many to be Japan’s finest contemporary author. He burst onto the scene in 1979 with his gritty novella, Hear the…
Antoine “Fats” Domino, Jr., one of the early pioneers of a musical style that came to be known as rock ‘n’ roll, whose iconic voice and boogie-woogie piano playing helped inspire entire eras of brilliant songwriting, passed away on October 25, 2017. He was 89. With his flat-top haircut, rotund figure, and buoyant personality, Domino…
Today, Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) would have been 100 years old. Happy birthday, brother! To celebrate a century of Monk, here’s a video from our free course exploring the roots and musical extensions of the American musical language of the blues called A Conversation with the Blues. In it, instructor Vince Di Mura explains how Monk is able to coax a…
By Emanuel Harrold As I go out and listen to new music on a daily basis, I can’t help but hear the nuances of jazz music in everyday moments. Sometimes, it’s the syncopation and spacing of sounds, other times, it’s the rhythms. And, sure, I’m a jazz drummer, so I’m biased, but it’s true that…
“In the paper, the lyrics are waiting. And we’re just gonna pull them out with a pen.” – Esperanza Spalding Music today is hardly something to get too excited about. Let’s face it, with all the streaming services available to us at any moment for free (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal, etc.), music as a commodity has…
+ 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. A fire roars with life on a cool summer night somewhere in the north of France, possibly even just over the Belgian border. Music drifts into the night…
+ 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. A few years ago, I had one of the most powerful live music experiences of my life when I went to see Stevie Wonder on his Songs in…
After becoming a hit as the “‘Benny Hill’ Theme,” “Yakety Sax” experienced a renaissance turning dramatic web videos into funny ones.
By Mike Casey Raise your hand if you’ve heard this cliché before: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Well, as cheesy as that sounds, I happen to believe it’s right on the money. After all, advanced musical devices, concepts, and patterns are usually just a slew of basic fundamentals stacked on top of one another, inverted,…
Compared to most instruments, the modern guitar is a relatively new instrument. While classical instruments like piano, brass, and woodwinds all have hundreds of years of pedagogy behind them, the language of guitar music and how we learn to play is new and constantly changing. Today, we can find chords to any song on the internet…
