Hello! This month I am introducing a new theme for us to focus on: melody. This is an area of study that often gets short-changed in educational settings. I assume that's because it's hard to talk objectively about what makes a good melody. There are fewer "rules" to follow than for chord progressions, and there is also correspondingly more incentive to make your melody unique. So in many cases, people are left to fend for themselves in terms of composing melodies. The one area of my experience where I do see a lot of attention given to this process is in improvisation. A lot of jazz education is focused on the creation and development of melodic material, because this is such a big part of what a jazz musician does. I plan to draw from this experience and see how we can apply the same ideas to composition (including songwriting).
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If you'd like to join us for this month-long exploration of melody, please become a Gold-level member of the Outside Shore Music community. You'll have access to Musicianship Workshop space where I make new educational materials available and post projects to work on. You'll also have access to all my premium online courses such as Basic Music Theory as well as exclusive weekly Office Hours.
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In other news, MuseScore Studio 4.4 released on schedule last week and includes many great new improvements. As always with any new release, there are also a couple of new bugs (nothing too serious), so you can also expect a 4.4.1 update sometime within the next week or so. Meanwhile, you can also expect to hear about some updates to the Outside Shore Music community site soon.

Mastering MuseScore

If you are interested in getting the most out of the world's most popular music notation software, join our community with a Mastering MuseScore membership for the most comprehensive training & expert support available!

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!

Tip of the Week

One of the great new features in MuseScore 4.4 is the ability to have hairpins and other lines that start or stop on a beat where there is no note or rest. In this video post, I show you how to use this feature to easily add a "swell" - a crescendo followed by a diminuendo on a single sustained note.

Musicianship

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Music Master Class

This week in the Music Master Class with Marc Sabatella, we will start our exploration of melody with some demonstrations involving improvisation as well as a look at music created for the projects in the Musicianship Workshop space.

In Theory

Most music theory pedagogy focuses on harmonic structures like chords and chord progressions, with relatively little attention given to melodic structure. That said, there are a few principles in common use that are worth understanding. In this video post, I explain the concept of "period" organization of musical phrases, using a familiar song as an example.