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Outside Shore Music / Mastering MuseScore

As the seasons change, so does the time!

Published over 2 years ago • 2 min read

Hello! First, an important notice: this week the US returned from daylight to standard time, so that will affect the start time for my live events for many of you. For the next few months they will be 17:30 GMT instead of 16:30. You still need to figure out your own conversion from there based on your local time zone and seasonal time adjustment. I realize some other countries changed last week and that affected things as well.

In other news, we're now underway in the Jazz Piano Holiday course (although if you still want to enroll, you can still catch up!), so be sure to check out this week's lessons if you haven't already. And if you enrolled as an All-Access Member, be sure to drop by today and every Tuesday for my Office Hours where you can ask questions! And everyone is always welcome for the Music Master Class on Thursdays!

MuseScore Café

This week in the MuseScore Café with Marc Sabatella, I'm going to talk about techniques you will find use find useful when creating jazz piano arrangements. I'll be talking about templates, styles, chord symbols, multiple voices, and more. Those of you enrolled in the Jazz Piano Holiday should find this especially useful!

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

A few weeks ago I showed how to enter music in multiple voices. Today I want to show you how to move music from one voice to another.

If you've already entered music in voice 1 and wish to move it to voice 2, the best way is usually to select the full range (can be one measure or many) and use Tools / Voices / Exchange Voice 1-2. I use this command often enough that I've defined a shortcut for it in Edit / Preferences / Shortcuts.

A potential downside of this command for some cases is that it only works on full measures. if instead you are trying to move just an individual note or notes within a measure, then instead, select the inidividual note or notes (with Ctrl+click) and use the voice buttons on the toolbar, or the shortcuts Ctr+Alt+1-4. This, however, will only work if the destination voice is empty for those beats, and if there are not tuplets involved.

Music Master Class

This week I will be talking about basic harmonization - methods of accompanying a melody with a minimum of chords. This is one of the main topics for the week in Jazz Piano Holiday, so tune in to see the techniques in action. Be sure to submit your initial versions of your own songs for consideration!

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

The subject of swing came up during discussion about rhythm in my Jazz Piano Holiday course, and I was disappointed with most of the videos I found online to teach about this. So, I made my own, entitled, "Swing Eighth Notes Are Not Triplets!"

Glad I got that off my chest!

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!

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