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 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, 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 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 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'll be looking at a variety of music and discussing project ideas.

In Theory

I 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.