Cody Fry is a grammy nominated singer songwriter based in Nashville Tennessee. He has a rich musical heritage as his father, Gary Fry, is an Emmy winning composer, arranger, producer, conductor and music educator with an array of accomplishments ranging from his position as artistic consultant to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to over 2500 nationally broadcast radio and television commercials for companies such as McDonalds, Sears, and United airlines. Having been surrounded by the sounds of a variety of orchestral compositions and arrangements, Cody's love for orchestral music was born in him at a young age. Despite his father's impressive accolades, Cody struggled to find success as a solo artist at first, mostly following in the footsteps of his father as a composer for campaign ads, commercials and brands such as Netflix and Google. In an attempt to further his solo career he auditioned for American Idol Season 14 in 2015 at the age of 24, but didn't make it far past the show's first round of auditions. Though Cody's music found some success on Spotify, it was not enough to afford him a full time career as a singer-songwriter. In 2021, six years after his American Idol audition, Cody's original song I Hear a Symphony unexpectedly went viral on TikTok despite the artist not even having an account on the app. Currently, I Hear a Symphony sits at over 85 million streams on Spotify.
In an interview with Lilly Eason for Atwood Magazine, Cody discusses a key shift in his growth as a composer: "I had this realization, cause I was doing a lot of media scoring and film scoring on the side because I love doing that orchestration study. And then I was doing singer songwriter stuff as an artist. And one day it hit me I was just like, why am I keeping these worlds separate? Why can't I try to create something that involves all of those skills?" Some first fruits of this realization are his songs, "Flying," and "I Hear a Symphony," which are both accompanied by full orchestra. Additionally, his album titled "Flying" includes orchestral interludes "Wind at the Edge of a Cliff," and "From across the Room."
Cody on numerous occasions has described his musical genre as "orchestral pop." In a video posted to his social media accounts he answers the question: "Why make orchestral music." He states: "The kids that are learning orchestral instruments in school or, you know, in band and middle school, they look around and they see the orchestras going out of business. They don't hear any orchestral instruments in the music they actually listen to. They end up thinking to themselves, 'why am I doing this?' And I want to give those students an answer to that question of why am I doing this? And the reason is because your contribution to music is valuable." In a world where pop and classical genres seem to be more and more estranged from one another every day, Cody hopes to inspire young musicians to explore variety in musical genre by incorporating it into his own music. This unique merging of genres seems to be accomplishing his purposes as students on social media platforms are engaging with Cody Fry's music online. His audience only continues to grow as he promotes his music online.
Cody's contribution to the musical sphere is unique as he seeks to set his own boundaries as a musical artist in 2022. In many ways, it is representative of the freedom many musicians and composers have today to explore their own styles whether they contribute to the canon or not. His recent rise to fame is also representative of pipeline changes as the rise of social media has given a platform to many musicians and artists looking to promote their work. Additionally, his desire to inspire young musicians to explore orchestral music is valuable in the pop saturated culture of today.
Hi Melodie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed Fry's I Hear a Symphony clip. I was very impressed by his use of TikTok to allow the audience to easily access to his music, but also his devotion to music education through his work.
-Lydia Lee
Hi Melodie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed Fry's I Hear a Symphony clip. I was very impressed by his use of TikTok to allow the audience to easily access to his music, but also his devotion to music education through his work.
-Lydia Lee
Hi Melodie! First of all, I love your clever title! I really appreciated your highlighting of Cody’s Dad’s influence on his career, and that it didn’t originally help him out in the business. I found that so interesting, it was really unexpected. Auditioning for American Idol was also unexpected and I found it really surprising that he did not make it that far on the show. I remember his piece I Hear a Symphony getting really big on Tik Tok, I can’t believe that that was his first big hit with 85 million streams. I think he’s the defining person in “orchestral pop”, I’ve never heard another person do anything quite like what he is. As a vocalist, he is certainly changing what it means to perform with an orchestra. He’s really branching out from the standard aria with orchestra structure for vocalists, and this is so needed (and appreciated!). I think he is definitely already achieving his goal to inspire young musicians by his blending of genres. Thanks for this post! -Abby Ryan
ReplyDeleteHi Melodie! Thanks for sharing your blog and beautiful music. It impressed me his genre "Orchestral pop." And I was happy to feel his love of classical music, especially in the field of the orchestra.
ReplyDelete-Haksung Lee
DeleteThis is a surprisingly great approach to the popular music scene. He's meeting the industry in the middle it seems and is still able to put something out that's enjoyable even to the highly trained-highly jaded musicians! Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteJO
Hi Melodie!
ReplyDeleteI have to say that he is now on my list of favorite singers. Your presentation was interesting to me because I love to play in an orchestra but I also love pop music, especially ballads. That's why this singer was so attractive to me, and I started to follow him immediately. I want to know more about his upcoming works.
Another thing I enjoyed during your presentation was the video you showed us. It was a nice show, having lights during the concert in a hall. I like when the formality that the concert halls use to have is taken it off ;)
Great post! I really enjoyed that clip of I Hear a Symphony. Classical music obviously has a problem with accessibility, so I'm glad to see there's someone like Cody who has this "orchestral pop" style that resonates with people closer to our age range.
ReplyDelete- Cameron
Hi Melodie! Thank you for making a blog about Cody Fry. When you did your presentation I was shocked I hadn't heard of him before because I can typically vibe with this style of music. Maybe because I was new to tik tok i didn't run into his videos. I loved the song you shared with us and am going to look more into his other works. Thank you for sharing! - Lydia Young
ReplyDeleteGetting my undergrad close to Nashville meant a lot of frequent visits for me! So seeing someone come from Nashville and being successful in our space is always a joy. His music was a new experience for me and while it might take some getting used to, I found it rather enjoyable on first listen. He may have to go into my rotation! -Zack T
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