And we're off!

Hello! The Basic Music Theory spring cohort is now underway, so if you already enrolled, click here to access the course. I'm closing the door for further enrollments at the end of the day today. If you've been considering joining us, this is your last chance - click here to enroll now.

In other news, MuseScore 4.0.2 released this week as well - see the Tip of the Week below for more information.

Mastering MuseScore

For the ultimate guide to the world's most popular music notation software, see my online course Mastering MuseScore 4.

MuseScore Café

This week in the MuseScore Café with Marc Sabatella, we continue our third-Wednesday "score of the month" series with a look at the theme music from the Music Master Class, which is our current notation project.

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.

Notation Project

This month we're working on the short string quartet piece Symphosium that you may recognize as the theme music for the Music Master Class. See the full post here.

Tip of the Week

This week's tip is very simple: download 4.0.2, which fixes a whole bunch of bugs and introduces some further engraving improvements. Here is the full release announcement.

For more info on how to update - or how to install MuseScore 4 if you haven't done so already - see the my post here.

Musicianship Skills

If you want to learn more about music - theory, composition, improvisation, and more - become a Gold level member and receive access to all of our music courses as well as exclusive benefits like my weekly Office Hours.

Music Master Class

This week in the Music Master Class with Marc Sabatella, I'll be going over coursework from the first week of the Basic Music Theory course, and talking some more about the subjects of music notation and pitch in particular.

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.

Cohort Project

The first project for the Basic Music Theory course is an improvisation & composition exercise involving the diatonic pitches. See the full post here.

In Theory

In the very first project for the Basic Music Theory course, I already sneak in something that would normally be thought of as a much more advanced topic: the hypodorian mode. Not that I use this term explicitly in the lesson, but that's what it is about.
​
Many of us learn the names of the seven "modes" that are formed by taking the seven diatonic pitches A-G and arranging them to form scales starting on either C (ionian), D (dorian), E (phrygian), F (lydian), G (mixolydian), A (aeolian), or B (locrian). But few of us ever learn that there is much more to the modal system than this, or that some of those seven were relative latecomers to the party. Nor do we learn much about how any of these modes were actually used.

I don't pretend to be an early music scholar, but see the full post here for more on this topic.