This newsletter is for Pueblo musicians - to keep us all connected and informed about opportunities.
Fireflies
Hello! As I recall from growing up in Connecticut, this is the time of year when we would spend evenings chasing the fireflies (aka lightning bugs). We don't have them in Colorado - or so I thought. I recently read that some have been sighted, but little is known about this branch of the firefly family tree. I just know I hope to have the opportunity to see some again for myself! This month in the Accessibility space we are studying braille and accessible music notation. Anyone interested in this topic is encouraged to check out and participate in the discussions there - this project is free and open to all. Oh - the first piece we are looking at is entitled Firefly, which is why they were on my mind as I write this. 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 free MuseScore Café with Marc Sabatella, we will look at ways of creating braille music using MuseScore using both the native facility and third-party converters. I will also share some MuseScore tips that can be useful to both blind and sighted users.
Tip of the WeekMuseScore now has two different ways of generating braille music - via the new (for 4.1) live braille panel, and the braille export (added at 4.0). Check out the full post to learn how to access these features. 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 free Music Master Class with Marc Sabatella, we will be checking out some music submitted by members and seeing what we can learn about it just from listening.
In TheoryThis week in the community we are looking at a simple little piece from a piano instruction book - originally as an example to study braille. But it got me thinking, simple melodies often make particularly good vehicles for reharmonization, and this turned out to be no exception. In the full post, I demonstrate one possible harmonization, and challenge you to figure it out by ear. Bonus points if you can analyze rather than just name the chords. This is the sort of thing we’ll be covering in much more detail in my Harmony and Chord Progression course starting in the fall. |
Until next time, keep making music! c/o ConvertKit, 113 CHERRY ST #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205 |
Outside Shore Music / Mastering MuseScore
This newsletter is for Pueblo musicians - to keep us all connected and informed about opportunities.
Hello! This week in the Musicianship Workshop, we start creating compositions based on a model provided by an existing work of our choice. This project will be our focus for the remainder of the month. This ongoing workshop is becoming a pretty exciting thing, and people are learning a lot and enjoying the process. We'd love to have you as a part of it as well! If you'd like to join us, please become a Gold-level member of the Outside Shore Music community, and then head to the workshop to...
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....