80 is just a symbol, so why make it the tempo?

• Jun 19, 2021 - 09:08
Reported version
3.6
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project

As discussed here, when the user enters a numeric tempo mark, such as one of the following

       Musescore Tempo Palette.png

the "80" is just a fixed portion of an icon. But Musescore enters the value of 80 into the "just added" current tempo—and the odds of 80 being the desired tempo are quite low.

So I'm requesting:

  a) an updated palette that abandons the "80":

       Musescore Tempo Palette without Numbers.png

  b) a default behavior that enters a tempo mark bearing the tempo of the current measure—there are a few solid advantages to that, as discussed.

scorster


Comments

If we are talking about the odds that the default marking being correct, at least 80 is right if you want 80. Having no figure is wrong every time. And it has a confusing look in the pallet.

The linked post suggests defaulting to the "current" tempo. Again, that would be wrong every time as the point of adding a tempo marking is to indicate a change of tempo.

That linked post suggests that it would be useful to provide a reminder of the current tempo as a starting point to change tempo by x%. I think most musicians work with tempi in absolute terms rather than relative. I know what 120 or 72 or 56 BPM feels like. 10% faster or 15% slower than X BPM is not so intuitive.

If you don't want to have to replace the 80, why not skip the palette and just use Alt+Shift+T?

I agree with others that I can't see any benefit to removing the number from the selection, that just forces you to have to edit it every time, even in the cases where 80 happened to be about right.

However, I could imagine a separate tempo marking that populated automatically with the current tempo, or modifying the shortcut to populate it, could be useful.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I could imagine a separate tempo marking that populated automatically with the current tempo.

Yes... here's one scenario:
A new user opens My First Score and sucessfully enters notes. Upon playback, the default playback is internally set to 120BPM -- not apparent to the user (no tempo marking displays in the score).
The user can drag the "tempo verifier" onto the score to flat out see the (default) BPM number and directly make any changes to the tempo:
Tempo_verifier.png
Can you guess which one is the "tempo verifier"?

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Suppose only the "auto-compute current tempo and display" would be available in MuseScore.
And someone would come with the request: please add the same list of tempo indications (for 4th, dotted 4th, ...) but with a fix setting of 80.
What would be the added value of that?
My answer is zero. Even the tiny time won when by chance it happens that the tempo you want is 80 would be defeated by the knowledge burden (and the screen space) to have all these "80" tempi to keep next to what would be considered the "normal" ones.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Marc wrote >> If you don't want to have to replace the 80, why not skip the palette and just use Alt+Shift+T?

Here on the Mac the equilant is Option+Shift+T and indeed that enters the numeric

     Musescore - Mac Tempo keystroke - Option-Shift-T.png

And, as best I can tell:

     a) this keystroke it only works for Musescore - Mac Tempo keystroke - Option-Shift-T.png

     b) this option still overwrites the existing tempo of the measure where added.

Marc wrote >> I could imagine a separate tempo marking that populated automatically with the current tempo, or modifying the shortcut to populate it, could be useful.

Thanks Marc, either of my options would satisfy my needs!

It could be achieved via a modifier keystroke, and likely leave other feathers unruffled. (Or Musescore could add six additional numeric "thus functioning" tempo marks to the Tempo palette—but at the expense of a adding some real estate to the palette.)

I've restated an attempted to clarify my needs and reasoning in the original thread in this post.

I don't mean to turn Musescore's GUI/UX on its head nor obfuscate others workflows. I just want to stop bumping my head against the numeric Tempo mark and thought others might also benefit from a solution.

So Marc, thanks for your comment in consideration of supporting of "I could imagine [the usefulness of) a separate tempo marking that populate[s] automatically with the current tempo, or modifying the shortcut to populate it ..."

scorster

In reply to by scorster

The timeline https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/timeline provides a useful way of tracking the current tempo.

My problem with the proposals is that to change tempo I would first have to insert a tempo marking that is definitely not what I want. Currently I insert a marking that is probably not what I want but sometimes it is what I want. It seems a step in the wrong direction.

Is it worth using up one of the limited key combinations to implement this? I would say there are other candidates that should be earlier in the queue, but if it is in the list of commands that can be assigned to shortcuts it wouldn't hurt.