Allow setting (starting/current?) tempo from the Play Panel
Just a possible idea popping up after reading https://musescore.org/en/node/91056#comment-402996:
It would also drastically cut down on the number of cases of people errornouesly trying to use the Play Panel to set the basic tempo for a piece rather than using Tempo Text. With no BPM value displayed, they might clue in quicker that maybe they are looking in the wrong place.
What if we add a button to actually allow setting the tempo from the play panel. To my knowledge lots of users do use it to try out which tempo feels 'right' for their piece, only to have to add/edit the corresponding tempo text and then reset the slider to 100%. So why not allow them to 'Save to score…' the currently set tempo?
A lot of things need to be decided though:
- Where does it apply to:
- start tempo
- current cursor position
- current 'section' (as in, change the preceding tempo marking)
- current loop/selection (and then does it restore tempo after the selection?)
- What does it affect: only that one marking or scale all tempo markings in the score?
- Do we really want to add yet another button to a panel that is quite big already? (yes, I'm aware a redesign is pending, but adding a (currently ambiguously defined) button won't help in making it smaller…)
The idea has been pitched; comment time :)
Comments
I think this would be a big mistake. A human musician playing from the printed score won't see the contents of the Play Panel. We should be discouraging people from imaging the Paly Panel is the way to set the tempo for a piece - it just is not the right way to do it. Unless you mean, a button in the Play Panel to actually add a tempo text to the score. That's possible, I guess. But as you say, it's cluttered enough already.
In reply to I think this would be a big by Marc Sabatella
That's exactly what I was suggesting, apologies if it didn't come across clearly.
The goal is to end up with a correct score, having the correct tempo marking notated in the score.
In reply to Unless you mean, a button in by jeetee
I have to agree with Marc on this one, although I also agree that this can be confusing for new users (when I first started using the program it took me more time than I care to admit to understand the difference between the 'actual' tempo and the 'playback' tempo).
The ability to temporarily override the tempo on playback is an enormously useful tool. When I am working on a complex fugue and need to hear the harmonies beat-by-beat in fast passages of 16ths, I often slow the playback down to 50% or less to help me evaluate what I might need to rework. If I didn't have that playback-speed tool available, I would either have to slow down the actual tempo in the inspector and then speed it up again when I was done (a more labourious task than simply moving a slider) or analyse the harmony of each beat mentally (a MUCH more labourious task).
Perhaps the answer to this confusion would be to rethink the label on the playback panel 'Tempo' slider. I believe a lot of the confusion comes from the incorrect use of the term 'Tempo' here. I would suggest something like:
Playback Speed
(% of actual tempo)
as a starting point for discussion. What do you think?
In reply to I have to agree with Marc on by Recorder485
I have no intention to thwart the temporarily override functionality at all! Slowing down playback for analysis or speeding it up for repeat-list testing is extremely useful, let alone all the cases I've used it during practicing.
In that respect your renaming suggestion is very good (for shortness, I'd go with simply Speed) and should be taken into account for the redesign imo.
But I've just as often worked on a transcription for our choir that has different tempo sections in the original score. Only to sit with the director and slightly (or sometimes not so slightly ;) ) alter them. For those type of scenarios, we use the slider to find a good tempo interpretation. Having then an additional button to produce/alter a tempo marking based off of the current slider resulting value might facilitate this.
As mentioned in my opening post though, I'm not yet convinced it would actually save me sufficient effort while it does eat away on that precious screen real estate…
In reply to I have no intention to thwart by jeetee
As to eating up screen real-estate, I almost never keep the Playback Panel open unless I need to adjust playback speed or volume. As soon as that adjustment is made, I close it.
Your idea to have a 'reset Tempo to match playback speed setting' button of some sort isn't a bad one, I think, but since the playback panel makes global adjustments to the entire score, I am not sure if/how that could be coded so it only affects one section of a piece. I presume that's what you have in mind?
In reply to As to eating up screen by Recorder485
I've been going over this request in the back of my mind this past month, but didn't come up with a non-confusing and clear view on how I feel this should work.
Parking it for now until brilliance hits someone's mind and this turns out to be implementable in a non-confusing way.