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!
Time changes
Hello! Here in the US, daylight savings ended over the weekend, meaning that if you live outside the US, my live events may be at a different time this week. So be sure to check what time 12:30 PM Eastern is for you. An easy way to do that is to type into a Google search, "what time is 12:30 PM Eastern". It will tell you the local time. Also keep in mind there may be a second change when your own clocks change. For those of you in the US, nothing changes. Meanwhile, in the Harmony and Chord Progressions course, we are in week 10, focusing on the interrelated subjects of augmented sixth chords, the Neapolitan, and tritone substitutions. 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'll look at meter and time signatures - how to work with them, and also how to work without them when you want.
Tip of the WeekBy default, MuseScore plays a simple voicing for each chord symbol you enter. But sometimes, you don’t want to hear this - like if your music is already fully notated and you’re adding chord symbols for analysis purposes. In this video post, I show you how to disable chord symbol playback program-wide, score-wide, or for selected chord symbols. 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 will be exploring the use of augmented sixth chords in the literature and in some of your projects completed for the Harmony and Chord Progressions course.
In TheoryWhen counting sheep or other items, we all know 4 comes before 5. The pattern of 4 followed by 5 is also a common choice when we’re talking about chord progressions - normally notated with Roman numerals (IV — V). But there are actually quite a few other chords that can lead naturally to the V chord. We’ve been covering some of these possibilities in my Harmony and Chord Progressions course, and I thought it would be interesting to summarize all the different ways we’ve encountered. In this video post, I show eight different chords that are often found harmonizing leading to the V chord, harmonizing a melody of “do — ti” (scale degrees 1 — 7). |
Until next time, keep making music! c/o ConvertKit, 113 CHERRY ST #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205 |
Outside Shore Music / Mastering MuseScore
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! As I mentioned last week, I'm making some changes to how subscriptions work in the Outside Shore Music community. Those of you who have accounts on the site but no active subscriptions should already have received a message from me regarding this. Those of you with active subscriptions are not affected. For those of you who don't have accounts on the site already, I'd still love to have you join us, and I'll send out some more info later. This week in the Musicianship Workshop space,...
Hello! As September gives way to October and the leaves start changing here in the Northern hemisphere (and start appearing in the Southern), there are a few changes here in the world of Outside Shore Music also that I'd like to let you know about. First, as I have indicated recently, I have now enabled a new "gamification" feature for the Outside Shore Music community site. The idea is to incentivize engagement - and yes, I know how buzzwordy that sounds, but it's an accurate description....
Benny Golson Hello! This week we continue our work on melody in the Musicianship Workshop space. Next month I plan to continue looking at melody but also broaden the scope to look at other related topics. If you'd like to join us, please become a Gold-level member of the Outside Shore Music community, then pop over to the workshop to see what we're up to and get started! This week also marks the passing of one of the most respected jazz musicians of our time, saxophonist Benny Golson....