Edit and engrave music like a pro!
In this workshop, you will learn the set of skills and techniques involved in producing beautifully readable sheet music. It goes beyond merely knowing how to use music notation software like MuseScore, although that's certainly a part of it. It means making intelligent decisions about how to use different software features to produce the most professional-looking results.
For example, when adding dynamic markings, they are normally centered just below the note to which they are added, and that's what MuseScore does by default. But when does it make sense to override this, and what's the best way to go about it? Or, consider a score that won't quite fit on a single page. When is it best to squeeze it smaller to make it fit versus to allow it to take a second page? And how do you do this and achieve a pleasing result - not too crowded, not too sparse?
If you look at scores shared on musescore.com, you will see a very wide range in terms of attention to these sorts of details. Some scores are engraved extremely well, while others are almost painful to look at. I want your music to be in the first category, not the second!
How can I help?
The Music Engraving Workshop is designed to give you instruction and hands-on practice in all of this, with video lessons, guided projects, and feedback on your work. If you don't already have a handle on the basics of note input and adding dynamics and other markings to your score, then you can refer to the lessons in Mastering MuseScore: Complete Online Course to come up to speed. Here in the Music Engraving Workshop, we'll be focusing on where to go from there.
In this workshop, you'll be working with a group of other motivated musicians. I'll be your coach, giving you lessons and projects to complete and feedback on your work.
Since it's an ongoing course, it's not limited to a preset curriculum - I can and will adapt to your needs. But you can expect the following general format:
- Each month there may be a new theme
- Every week or two I post new a lesson and/or project for you to work on
- You can discuss the material with me and other students on the Community site
- On Tuesdays, you can ask questions and get feedback during my live Office Hours
- You can post your work and view the work of others, and you can receive and give feedback
- On Wednesdays, I may feature some student work live in my MuseScore Café (these sessions are also recorded)
- I regularly post additional feedback on projects to the Community
An amazing value!
Both the Music Engraving and Musicianship Skills workshops are free and exclusive benefits of Gold Level Membership, which is an incredibly inexpensive way to get an education that other musicians can only dream of.
Many of us have paid $50 or more every week for music lessons. Or for that matter, thousands on college classes - tens of thousands for a degree. And often, we come away with as many unanswered questions as when we started. It's not your fault; those programs are designed to teach specific subjects but not necessarily to produce well-rounded musicians.
If you're ready to become the musician you've always wanted to be, why not join us? For a fraction of the price of a private lesson with your local teacher, you get world-class instruction in all of these vital areas, a cohort of fellow students to support you in your journey, access to a library of online courses, and more.