Hello! Thanks to all of you who participated in the Thanksgiving Special Master Class - we had a lot of fun creating music together! The replay is available to watch via that same link.

Remember also that my Black Friday sale is continuing through the rest of this week. Actually, I rather dislike the term Black Friday, and would rather think of this as a way of expressing my appreciation for you! To take advantage of the special prices, just use any of the links below:

• ​Mastering MuseScore: Complete Online Course​
• ​Basic Music Theory​
• ​Harmony and Chord Progressions​
• ​Practical Counterpoint​
• ​All-Access Membership​

MuseScore Café

This week in the MuseScore Café with Marc Sabatella, we continue our first-Wednesday "Ask Me Anything" series. Come with your questions and I'll do my best to answer! If I'll need your score in order to assist, post it first to the community thread I created.

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

If you alternate rapidly back and forth between two notes a step apart, it's called a trill, and you add it from the Lines palette. Enter the lower note then click the icon with the "tr" followed by a wavy line.

The same basic idea but applied to notes more than a step apart is called a tremolo and is added from the Tremolos palette. Enter the two notes each at half the desired total duration, then select the first note and click the "32nd between notes" (or one of the other "between notes") icons.

If just a single note is repeated quickly, this is also called a tremolo, unless it's for percussion, in which case it is called a roll. The symbols are the same, though - the various "through stem" icons on the Tremolos palette. Although percussion sometimes uses a trill symbol instead.

For a comprehensive look at these and other features, see Mastering MuseScore: Complete Online Course,

Music Master Class

We return to our normal schedule this week, and I'll be looking at a number of arrangements-in-progress created for the Jazz Piano Holiday course. You'll see some really exciting things happening musically!

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

One of the ideas discussed in the lessons for the jazz piano course has to do with motion and keeping it consistent throughout a piece. If the melody sustains a note or rests, some other voice(s) should move to keep the pulse.

In a jazz or rock band, the drums and bass usually fulfill this role, so no other single instrument necessarily needs to be moving at any given time. Similar for rhythm guitar when present. In the absence of a rhythm section to carry this role, it's usually important to distribute the motion between the different musicians, or between the "voices" in a solo piano arrangement, so something is moving at almost all points.

This is not unique to jazz or rock at all, though. It comes up also in the context of my Practical Counterpoint course. Here's an excerpt from Bach that I use in one of my handouts:

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