Ian is a pianist, entrepreneur and professional musician. He started Soundfly to help people really find what gets them most excited musically and pursue it. He's toured all over the world with his experimental trio Sontag Shogun. Check out his most recent course Building Blocks of Piano or follow him on Twitter at @ianrtemple. Here’s a quick video full of tips about how to reach out to venues you’ve never played at, courtesy of Soundfly’s free online course on DIY booking, management, and promotion, Touring on a Shoestring. (more…)
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Getting a space prepped for a recording session takes a considerable amount of time. If you’re recording clients, or guest musicians, or just helping out a friend, always try to ask for a specific tech plot in advance so you can plan accordingly. There’s nothing that will suck the inspiration and energy right out of the room more than waiting around to set up mics and inputs when the musicians are already done setting up their gear. Take a look back at television shows that were geared towards young children throughout the decades and listen to their themes. I’m a ’90s kid myself, so I watched a lot of shows on PBS Kids, especially Arthur, and I watched a lot of Disney movies like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules. When songs and musical pieces mimic scale degrees from these shows
Read MoreI’m one of those people that treats their dog like a person. I schedule my entire life around him, and relish in saying things like: “Oh sorry, I have to go home now, my dog is waiting for me.” I take approximately 15 photos of him doing the same things every day; my current favorite is when he sits on the top of our staircase so he can see out the window. We call this “watching TV.” Dead J is one of the most innovative and prolific electronic musicians making music in China. His music is dancy, crunchy, sonically diverse, and all-together banging. He was originally inspired to make electronic music because he felt that rock music had stagnated. “One of the charming things about electronic music is its individualism,” according to Dead J, “just like when an artist creates a painting by the
Read MoreWill Marshall is a singer, composer, producer, pianist, synthesist, engineer and educator. Will has engineered for artists such as Oscar-nominated film composer Nicholas Britell, Grammy-nominated jazz musician Patrick Gleeson, R&B singer Vudajé, experimental composer Augur Duende, and electronic acts Ill Gates, Freq Nasty and the Fungineers. He is currently consulting mix engineer and producer for Sennie Records in San José. As an educator, Will taught at Pyramind in San Francisco from 2015-2018 and is a well-known authority in the creative applications of music technology. He has written and directed several in-depth educational video series, taught numerous workshops, and accepts occasional private students. Soundfly is a new kind of music school for today's musician. We create creative
Read MoreNot all of us have access to the kind of gear that the Boards are rocking. As usual though, we can find some good digital approximations on the internet. One of my absolute favourites is James Peck’s VHS Audio Degradation Suite. It provides emulations (with optional speaker simulation) of old video tape audio playback, based on machines in various states of disrepair. If anything digital is going to get you even close to Boards of Canada’s bevy of broken-down gear, this is it. While it’s free, it only works through Native Instruments’ paid Reaktor 6 soft synth platform. If you don’t already have that, you can try it out for 30 days. For example, we played a show in Vancouver and made friends with the other artist on the bill. She told us about an “Italian Day” street fair happening the nex
Read MoreBy the time I was 16, I was making a living as a professional DJ. Over my 16-year career, I touched on many other areas of the music industry, including A&R, bookings, event management, promotion, music curation, and ultimately a seven-year club residency with Pacha Ibiza. Project Sonata is an American charity that uses the Japanese synthesizer program UTAU to create electronic vocals for its animated avatar, Sonata. Sonata helps raise awareness and funds for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. (more…)
Read MoreAnd if you’re as spellbound by those infectious grooves as we are, check out Soundfly’s conversation with Dan Freeman on the beat-making techniques of Quincy Jones here. Making a hasty decision to open your wallet can leave you feeling like you have to stick with it. But you might have to swallow your pride if it’s just sitting on the shelf getting dusty. Even if it wasn’t the greatest financial decision you’ve ever made, you might still be able to get some money back for it on the used gear market. (more…)
Read More+ Learn a new musical skill in 10 minutes! Explore Soundfly’s wide array of free online courses and gain a musical edge during your lunch break. Or sign up for the Soundfly Weekly newsletter and learn something new every Tuesday. *note: the previous link containing the full album uninterrupted, was recently taken down, but here’s a track-by-track playlist with the full album. Phew! (more…)...
Read MoreJeremy is a Montreal-based musician, sound artist and improviser who loves giving advice to emerging artists on how to make their tours more effective. He writes, records and performs electroacoustic "concrète" music for tape, oscillators and amplified objects and surfaces, as well as solo guitar. He has performed and released material throughout Europe and the UK, Asia, the US and Canada, mostly with his trio Sontag Shogun. From contemplative songwriting, to epic beats, to carefully crafted orchestrations, September’s student artists have created some memorable pieces in their Mainstage courses. Over several weeks of detailed content, constrained prompts, and personal feedback and support from a Soundfly Mentor, these students were able to explore and develop musical skills in areas like
Read MoreFrom her native Tunisia via France, Abdelwahed made her name playing sets in places like The Boiler Room and Berghain. Her work fuses gritty urban dance rhythms with unconventional textures; it’s ambient, industrial, and traditional Arab music all wrapped up within an experimental techno framework. In an interview she poses a question that summarizes her artistic vision: “If the people who invented house and techno were Arab, if they had grown up with our rhythms and our instruments, what would it sound like? Would it be the drum and bass, house and techno we know today? I don’t think so.” Abdelwahed’s latest album is Khonna, released in November 2018. And in 2017, Ischi paired up with YouTube sensations, the Gregory Brothers (of “Auto-Tune the News” and “Bed Intruder” fame), to produce “C
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