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!
Starting a new year!
Hello, and happy new year! I'm looking forward to a great 2024, full of music and growth. I'm back to business as usual with my live events this week, and for those of you who are Gold-level members, we'll also be resuming some musical projects - more info on that soon! I'll also take this opportunity to give up a heads-up you may have heard before but I want to remind everyone of. It is very likely that soon I'll be rebranding my site, to reflect the facts that a) what I do isn't just about MuseScore but about music more generally, and b) I operate independently and am not connected to the company that owns MuseScore. There will be other changes coming too - good ones! - and I want to minimize the impact of all this, so I'm proceeding carefully. I also don't want to blindside anyone, so I am trying to be as transparent as possible. Mastering MuseScoreFor the ultimate guide to the world's most popular music notation software, see my online course Mastering MuseScore 4. MuseScore CaféThis 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! 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 WeekOne of my favorite commands from MuseScore 3 that had been missing from MuseScore 4 until now is finally back with version 4.2. This command is one that had not been available very long, and not many people ever knew about it because there was no default shortcut for it. But it's extremely useful, and it's definitely worth your time to learn the command and create a shortcut for it. The command is called “apply current palette element” and it’s great for repeatedly applying a given palette item to multiple selections in your score. In this video post, I demonstrate the command itself and how to define a shortcut for it. Musicianship SkillsIf 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 ClassThis week in the Music Master Class with Marc Sabatella, we'll be looking at a variety of music and discussing project ideas. 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 TheoryI shared this with those of you in the Harmony course just after Christmas, but I thought everyone might like to see it, so I'm reposting here. Although I've heard the passage many times, I recently became aware of how much of an impact a particular harmonization employed by David Willcocks in his arrangement of "O Come All Ye Faithful" has had on the choral world. One chord in particular - the first beat of the line "Word of the Father" - is enough of a "thing" as to have inspired a T-shirt design. In this video post, I explore what is going on harmonically in this passage, and ponder the subject of how harmony can affect us so deeply. |
Until next time, keep making music! c/o ConvertKit, 113 CHERRY ST #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205 |
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 all the great discussion in last week's MuseScore Café about ideas for building a high-quality score library. I'm still not exactly sure how we will proceed but stay tuned for more on this topic, as there definitely seems to be interest in the topic! This week in Practical Counterpoint, we continue our work on imitation. Music Master Class will feature some really interesting short "inventions" created by students in the course! Mastering MuseScore If you are interested in...
Hello, hello! This week in Practical Counterpoint, we begin the section on imitation, so you can look forward to hearing much about that. This week I also am starting the ball rolling towards crowd-sourcing a library of high-quality scores in MuseScore format. We'll discuss this during Wednesday's MuseScore Café, and hopefully return to the subject in the weeks ahead. My goal is to eventually have a reliable way of finding the "best" MuseScore editions of any given piece for further study....
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...