5 of the Most Unusual “Instruments” Used in Musical Scores
From natural sounds to mechanical devices, many unusual things have been incorporated into musical scores by daring composers. Here are 5.
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What Are Your Favorite Songs That Defy Expectations?
In Ep. 48 of Soundfly’s podcast, Carter and Mahea are joined by composer Ryan Lott (of Son Lux) to discuss songs that do “the unexpected.”
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Songs That Are NOT for the Faint of Heart
In Ep. 40 of our show, songwriter and guitarist Christina Apostolopoulos joins us to chat about distortion, restraint, and unplayable songs.
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An Introduction to 20th Century Composer Christian Wolff
Today we’re taking an introductory look at one of the 20th century’s most daring avant-garde composers and his music, Christian Wolff.
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10 of the Most Interesting Field Recordists Working Across Aesthetic Boundaries
+ 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 roots of field recording go all the way back to early 1900s when pioneer musicologist John Lomax began recording cowboy songs in Texas. His son Alan […]
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4 Different Ways to Start a Musical Sentence
When you’re composing music, you kind of have to split yourself into a bunch of different personas. There’s “you, the artist” who contributes all the emotive content; “you, the craftsperson,” who gets anally retentive over just how you’re going to translate the emotive content in such a way that another human being can interpret it with […]
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What Is “Prepared Piano” and How Do You Notate It?
American composer John Cage was arguably the most prolific composer of prepared-piano music and is often credited as having invented the prepared piano, so to speak. While there were earlier instances of composers placing objects on the piano strings, or bypassing the keyboard in order to directly manipulate the strings in performance (most notably Henry […]
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Compact Discs as Expanded Instruments: Pioneers of Hacked CD Sound Art
History and Context of the CD The Compact Disc (CD) was introduced into commercial ubiquity on October 1, 1982, alongside the world’s first-ever CD player, the SONY CDP-101. Billy Joel’s sixth studio album, 52nd Street, was selected to be the first recording issued on this new digital audio format, which is hilarious considering that particular […]
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Sampling as Instrumentation: How Recorded Noise Found Its Way Into Music
+ Learn to create and arrange original, instrumental hip-hop music from sampling pioneer RJD2 himself in his new course on Soundfly, RJD2: From Samples to Songs. When we turn on the radio to any pop station, we hear sampling. When we utilize any MIDI instrument technology within our DAWs and hardware, we hear sampling. It’s everywhere, and it’s due […]
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Pauline Oliveros Made Me a Better Listener
We know more about hearing than listening. Sound is sound, and all sound can be music. There is virtue and scholarship in all sounds, all music, but we aren’t listening to it. We might be hearing it, but we aren’t listening. We as musicians and music lovers find ourselves forming cliques. We congregate in venues, […]
