A Beginner’s Guide to Chords and Modal Interchange
Making chords from the scale you’re in is fine, but borrowing notes and bringing them in from other scales and modes, now that’s fun!
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The Birth of the Unjazz
Modern songwriters, producers and artists are reinventing the way jazz idioms and foundations are applied in modern pop. Let’s break it down!
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3 Scale Modes That Will Deepen the Emotions of Your Pop Song
If you’re looking to impart a sinister, mysterious, bittersweet, or jazzy quality into your songwriting, do it using scale modes! Here’s how.
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Scale Mode Cheat Sheet: How to Remember Each and Every Mode
Modes and Key Signatures have a variety of different characteristics and are great for outside-the-box songwriting. Here’s a cheat sheet to remember them!
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On August 17, 1959, Miles Davis’ “Kind Of Blue” Was Released
A brief history of how Miles Davis’ 1959 classic “Kind Of Blue” came to be, and the album’s impacts on all kinds of musical communities.
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The Basics of the Dorian Mode for Guitar
A lesson on how to use one of the most exciting and practical scale modes for soloing on the guitar in jazz, blues, rock, and fusion.
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An Introduction to Zappa’s ‘Black Page #2’: Modality, Polyrhythms, and Intervals
We explore the fundamental rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic concepts at play in one of Frank Zappa’s most lauded compositions.
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We Analyzed Every Dang Song That Cracked the Billboard Top 5 in 2018
+ Looking to produce better music and make more fluent use of the emotional capabilities of chord progressions and harmonic theory? Preview Soundfly’s Unlocking the Emotional Power of Chords course for free today. Welcome back, pop music scholars, and Look Alive… because we did it again. That’s right — we sent an even Better Now, out-of-this-WRLD probe past all the […]
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Music for Practicing Scales and Modes
+ Learning to read and write music? Access hundreds of lessons from Soundfly’s online courses on music theory, songwriting, production, mixing and more — subscribe here. This article originally appeared on Ethan Hein’s blog. Are you trying to learn scales and patterns, but finding it hard to make yourself practice? Do yourself a favor, and practice over actual […]
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Does Music Theory Still Matter?
+ 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. Last year, Rihanna’s hit single “Work” started an argument here at Soundfly. We come from an array of different musical backgrounds, styles, training, and instruments, and the question that kicked […]
