The Sibelius Forum

Hello all. I have a Windows 10 64 bit PC, running Sibelius Student.

I have encountered an issue which has never occurred to me so far. I am finishing up a work and have added the tempo at the beginning. Unfortunately, on the fifth bar, the tempo changes. I have not added a second tempo at all in the work. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Nick

Look for text attached to that bar which might contain a word that Sibelius interprets as a tempo change.
How did this file originate? (typed in by hand, played in on a keyboard, imported from xml/MIDI)

Can you post a copy of the file so we can examine it to see probable cause?

The tempo change occurs at the beginning of the work, in the 8 bar intro. I use my keyboard and type everything in that way. I have a screenshot saved as a Word doc but it's not allowing me to attach it.

How do I post a copy of the file?

The best thing is probably to email it to me. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk

There's a hidden metronome mark <q> = 100 at the start of bar 5

Hi Nick, I found a number of hidden messages, CC MIDI messages and so on. There was another hidden metronome mark at the start setting <q> = 100 even in the latest version. I think your keyboard may be adding MIDI messages to the data stream that are affecting the result. Also, I notice you had the mixer set to max volume. This is not a good idea at all. Sib has very little headroom and if you set the mixer to max, there is no scope for the dynamics to change without causing clipping. It makes the NP piano sound dreadful. Better to turn up the volume later in the chain.

I noticed the tempo at the start was in Metronome mark text. I'm not sure this is a good idea. If you don't like the standard text style (Tempo) you can alter how it looks under Text Styles on the Text tab.

When I adjusted the volume to a bearable level, the song sounded really delightful. There's just a few places where you might want to re-think the harmony - bar 15 going into 16 seems a little out of character to the surrounding bars, and the voicing around bars 21-25. The chord at bar 35 is marked at Gm7, but the tenor is singing (in effect) an a minor chord. I am actually a tenor when I sing. I know this is probably for pro singers, but I can't help thinking an ordinary voice would find the Bbs a bit too much.They are certainly right on the upper edge of my range.

On a typgraphical point, the chords need to be consistently placed on the same instrument (piano) throughout, unless you are going to remove them before publication?

Yours,

Mike