Hello! Last week my newsletter had a theme of time changes; this week it's key changes. In the Harmony and Chord Progressions course, we are focusing on modulations. And both my tip of the week and theory post are about keys.
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A heads up regarding next week - it's Thanksgiving and I will be taking a break from my regular live events. But this week is business as usual. Please do remember, though, that in the US, daylight saving time has ended, so for those outside the US (or in states that don't use daylight saving time), be sure to do the appropriate time zone math to figure out your correct local time for my live shows.

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, I'll enter a piece of music from scratch so you can see my process and how I handle the inevitable complications that arise.

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

Sometimes when music modulates to a new key, it says there. But often, the change is just temporary, and it returns to the original key later. Depending on how long the passage in the new key is and how many accidentals would be required to write it, it’s common to not actually use a key signature for these temporary key changes. But for the cases where you do wish to use a key signature, MuseScore makes it easy. In this video post, I show you how to accomplish temporary key changes by adding a new key signature and restoring the old one in a single operation. By the way, the same trick works for clef and time signature changes.

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, we will be looking at some of your harmonic analyses performed for the Harmony and Chord Progressions course.

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

Often when we start to analyze harmony, we get so wrapped up in the labeling of each and every chord that we lose the big picture of what is happening. In music that is not completely diatonic, it is the places where the music leaves the key that tend to generate the most harmonic activity and interest. It can pay to focus on the changes of the key center and the use of non-diatonic chords within each key area to get a “big picture” view of the harmony. In this video post, I walk through a process for doing this using the Gershwin tune ‘S Wonderful as an example.

Until next time, keep making music!
Marc Sabatella

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