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
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 FEFE’s and ZEZE’s that were Meant to Be in the Top 5 of 2018’s Billboard Hot 100 charts, and what we got back was a tally of data and stats […]
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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 […]
