Hello! This week in the Practical Counterpoint course, we are wrapping up our focus on two-part counterpoint. We have a fun project to cap it off with, so even if you're not taking the course, you'll probably enjoy this week's Music Master Class!

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 look at various aspects of tempo - setting an initial tempo, changing tempo, gradual tempo changes, fermatas, pauses, and more.

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

Sometimes you want to place text between staves (such as for analysis) even though some of the text is logically connected to the upper staff and some is connected to the lower. If you try doing this by attaching individual text elements to the upper and lower staff as appropriate, it's very difficult to then get it to appear between the staves and nicely aligned. This is especially true if the score layout changes later. In this video post, I show you how to use the Roman numeral analysis feature to add text - whether it is actually RNA or not - in a way that guarantees good alignment.

Musicianship

If you are serious about learning music - theory, composition, improvisation, and more - become a Gold-level member and receive access to all of our music courses and workshops, as well as exclusive benefits like my weekly Office Hours, in addition to our acclaimed Mastering MuseScore resources.

Music Master Class

This week in the Music Master Class with Marc Sabatella, we'll wrap up our study of two-part counterpoint by looking at more exercises as well as the contrapuntal accompaniment project.

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

In music that has clearly distinct melody and accompaniment roles, the accompaniment often supplies a steady pulse. In contrapuntal music where each part is equally melodic, no single part is any more responsible for the pulse than any other. In this video post, I show how Bach uses a concept I call "distributed motion" to ensure a steady pulse via complementary rhythms.