fedora 16 musescore doesnt play

I am using fedora 16 for a month and noticed that musescore has a problem not being
able to play a score. The button bar appears odd also , although I cannot be certain
not having another linux pc to check a working version of musescore.
Three buttons are a bit darker grey as if they were active. The volume, the midi input
and the pause button.

The i/o on the preferences tab has the internal synthesizer radio button checked
and alsa audio checked with the Device field showing default.

Sound works on my system for other applications.

I downloaded the source code but the only instructions to build are for ubuntu and
am having some trouble as make is not working and I am not sure about the
prerequisites in any case.

appreciate any suggestions to proceed.

thanks