My name is Marc Sabatella, and I am the founder of Outside Shore Music - a pioneer of online music education since the dawn of the web. As the creator of Mastering MuseScore, A Jazz Improvisation Primer, and other resources, I have dedicated most of my life to helping as many musicians as I can. Subscribe to my free newsletter for MuseScore tips, theory insights, and more information on how to create your best music!
Help is on the way!
Hello! This week's MuseScore Café episode is all about getting - and giving - help. One reason I am focusing on this right now is that we are beginning to put together the online Handbook for MuseScore 4. We've created the overall outline and are now actively seeking volunteers to help us write the descriptions and make screenshots. If you're interested in participating, please check out the forum announcement.
By the way, in case you are wondering - there is no definitive word on when MuseScore 4 will be released, other than the usual "when it's ready." But my crystal ball says you might reasonably expect it late summer / early fall. And of course, I'll be giving you previews and doing everything I can to help you make the transition when the time comes!
Oh, and for for anyone who was trying to access my School or Communtiy sites Sunday night / Monday morning - I apologize for the outage. Unfortunately it went down right after I went to bed and I didn't find out until the next morning. The good news it that it was an easy fix and all should be well now.
MuseScore Café
This week in the MuseScore Café with Marc Sabatella, we look at the different ways of getting help with MuseScore. We also take a sneak peek at some of what's in store for MuseScore 4 and talk about how you can help create better help!
The free MuseScore Café is live on Wednesday at 12:30 PM Eastern (16:30 GMT, or 17:30 during the winter months), and you can access past episodes in the archive.
Tip of the Week
Some time ago I put together a little Help page for my website - just an organized list of links to various other resources, including my own courses as well as other sites. I don't normally go out of my way to publicize this page and mostly I forget it exists. But, now seems like a good time to highlight it. Just click the image below to visit the page:
Music Master Class
This week in the Music Master Class with Marc Sabatella, we check out music submitted lately in a variety of different contexts. One common thread I'll talk about is melodic development. We'll see a "composed jazz solo" by Colleen VanderHoek (over the chord progression to a Clare Fisher tune) and an arrangement of an Irving Berlin tune by Jim Ivy. I'll also highlight an interesting discussion between Frank Paul, Rod Woodhouse, and me regarding sequences.
The free Music Master Class is live on Thursday at 12:30 PM Eastern (16:30 GMT, or 17:30 during the winter months), and you can access past episodes in the archive.
In Theory
In last week's Music Master Class, I concluded by talking about a old song by Johnny Mercer and Barry Manilow that has been floating around in my head and that I had just started thinking about learning, and I challenged everyone to try writing out a familiar song by ear. I went ahead and took my own challenge, and here's the result:
https://musescore.com/user/2975/scores/8242358/s/nf8ASN?share=copy_link
Here is a video of the original recording for comparison:
The original has a key change mid-way through, but I elected to keep my lead sheet all in one key for simplicity.
There are any number of other subjective decisions to make in reducing a pop song to a lead sheet, like how to represent rhythms that are not sung completely in time, how to represent the pitches of "ghost" notes, etc. Feel free to discuss this more in the Community!
Outside Shore Music / Mastering MuseScore
by Marc Sabatella
My name is Marc Sabatella, and I am the founder of Outside Shore Music - a pioneer of online music education since the dawn of the web. As the creator of Mastering MuseScore, A Jazz Improvisation Primer, and other resources, I have dedicated most of my life to helping as many musicians as I can. Subscribe to my free newsletter for MuseScore tips, theory insights, and more information on how to create your best music!
Hello! Thanks for bearing with me over the past week as I was setting up my new studio. While I still have work to do, we should be back to business as usual with respect to my live events.Meanwhile, this week in Practical Counterpoint, we're wrapping up our initial exploration of writing for three or more voices, and in Music Master Class we'll be looking at your projects on this topic. Mastering MuseScore If you are interested in getting the most out of the world's most popular music...
Hello! I wanted to give you a heads up that I am in the process of setting up a new studio, so bear with me if there are any glitches in my live events this week.Meanwhile, this week in the Practical Counterpoint course, we're continuing to expand to three parts and beyond. I'll be posting some new things for us to work on shortly. Mastering MuseScore If you are interested in getting the most out of the world's most popular music notation software, join our community with a Mastering...
Hello! In the Practical Counterpoint course, we're moving on to working with three or more parts, which has implications both for the types of textures and harmonies you can create. One of the most interesting things that should come from this is a realization of just how much of what there is to know about harmony can be learned - and indeed, was originally developed - through the study of counterpoint. Those of you in the course will be experiencing this first-hand, but as always, everyone...