The Sibelius Forum

I was playing a song and wanted to speed it up. In the past ten years the little note on the Transport panel, to the left of the tempo slider, has always been a quarter note. Quarter Note = 90. I noticed today it's a dotted half note! Dotted Half Note = 30. How in the world did that happen, and how do I change it back? I don't think in terms of dotted half notes! Using Mac OS 10.14.6, Sibelius Ultimate 2019.7.

Tnx... Tom in Texas

I'm very sorry, but my psychic powers are limited by the current phase of the moon.

My guesses would be:

You have accidentally typed a dotted minim into a tempo text instead of a crotchet.
Your time sig is a compound one with dotted minim beats (6/4)

Sib's transport slider takes its beat value from the TS or from a statement like q = 60 or h = 30.

You don't actually say HOW you speeded it up. More info and, preferably, a sib file that shows the problem please.

Don't use the transport to change the tempo. Add it to the score instead. Change it in the score, also. Find a tempo you like and leave it. That will also correct the transport.

Thanks... No, your psychic powers are working well. Yes, the song is in 6/4. So, that's the reason there is a dotted half on the panel? I guess it has always been that way, and I just didn't notice it.

Early on when writing a piece, I will control the tempo with the transport panel. When I'm putting finishing touches and getting it ready for a performance, I'll set the tempo permanently by the cumbersome process of clicking on the first bar, Option-Command-T, etc. When it was too slow and I looked at the note on the transport panel, it surprised me. I'd never seen anything there other than a quarter note. Converting dotted half notes to quarter notes is like converting liters to gallons, or something, for a right-brained musician. It's ok. Just wondered what I butt-dialed on my computer keyboard that caused that.

Thank you for your input!

tom

I would agree whole-hartedly with Bobp about use of the transport slider. it was only ever intended as a 'quick adn dirty' trick to check a tempo. Make sure you always put it back in the centre (double click it).

Music theory warning:

A TS with a 4 on the bottom is counting crotchets (quarters)
A TS with a 2 on the bottom is counting Minims (Halfs)
A TS with an 8 on the bottom is either counting quavers (eighths) if it is slow or dotted crotchets (dotted quarters) if quick.

Set the initial tempo at the start with a Tempo text. It can always be edited if it's too slow or too fast.
There is a dictionary of Italian terms in Sibelius (and quite a few modern ones as well) to set the inital tempo without needing to put a number in, but you can adjust those by putting a <q> = number after the word (Use control with the numpad numbers to get the note - [ctrl]4 will give crotchet, [ctrl]5 will give minim and so on). It's really very quick - and non-permanent! It's also the correct way to do things.

Just been playing a piece with an intro in 6/8 with a tempo marking of dotted crotchet = 40. That's not quick!

If dotted crotchet = 40 quaver = 120

In 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 the beat will be shown as dotted crotchet in 5/8, 7/8/ etc it will be shown as quaver - for obvious reasons if you think about it!

I have been in band, orchestra and choir...I have taken both piano and voice lessons...and I never knew what a crotchet was. Assumed that was something possessed by old men. Thanks for that info. It's all news to me. And I have been composing on Sibelius for, maybe, eight years. Seems Avid could have made some of these commands a little less clumsy to execute, for sure for us Mac people. We use smiley faces and frowny faces. And Italian! Why does music still have to be in Italian?? I guess it seems fancier, or something. There's just something not nearly as cool, saying "lyrics" instead of "libretto" with a trilled r. Well...as long as it works.

tomfuller wrote:I have been in band, orchestra and choir...I have taken both piano and voice lessons...and I never knew what a crotchet was. Assumed that was something possessed by old men.

When I was teaching, I used to tell the children a crotchet was like me - a grumpy old man (I was all of 30 at the time! )

tomfuller wrote:Thanks for that info. It's all news to me. And I have been composing on Sibelius for, maybe, eight years. Seems Avid could have made some of these commands a little less clumsy to execute, for sure for us Mac people. We use smiley faces and frowny faces. And Italian! Why does music still have to be in Italian?? I guess it seems fancier, or something.

If you've been taught music properly, the Italian will be second nature to you. besides, the Italians can make a single word say what the English would take a page to do.

tomfuller wrote:There's just something not nearly as cool, saying "lyrics" instead of "libretto" with a trilled r. Well...as long as it works.

A song has lyrics, an opera or a musical has a libretto! See what I mean?

I still don't know what a crotchet is. Fortunately, I don't need to.
Italian seems to be the most universal musical language. But it still depends on what country the score was published in. I've run across French and German. Even some Latin.

Italy, France and Germany were the three main countries where musical developments occurred for many hundreds of years. England had a brief spurt of creativity in the 15th and 16th centuries but then the Italians and the Germans became the main centres of musical development. France made a small contribution, too. You'll find most music al terms are Italian, with a smattering of German in some of the Baroque and late Romantic stuff. French is almost exclusively used by people like Ravel, Debussy and Faure. Russian is generally found in original music for the Russian state in the Soviet Era and Late Romantics like Tchaikovsky, Tcherepnin, Rachmaninov, and so on and in the 20th Century, Stravinsky tended to use Italian terms.

Most famous Classical composers from many Western countries were trained in Austria/Germany or Italy.

English has only crept into common usage since the 20th Century, as America (in particular) found its feet and developed what is, to all intents and purposes, a true American music.(Everything previous - except for Native American music - was just a reflection of what was going on in Europe.