Tempo, time signatures and key changes

How fast a song goes, how its beats are counted and which key it is in can be set for the whole song, and changed partway through, as a score changes them.

Tempo

The tempo is how fast the beats go, in beats per minute (BPM): at 60 BPM a beat lasts a second, at 120 half a second. Slow ballads sit around 60 to 80, most pop between 90 and 130, dance music around 120 to 130, and fast swing or punk well over 160.

The TEMPO box in the toolbar is the tempo the song starts at: drag the number up or down, or double-click it and type one. The chord sheet shows it too, next to the key. To find the tempo of a song you hear, click Tap on the chord sheet on every beat (see Practising).

Changing tempo partway through

The Tempo strip, above the bar numbers in the playlist, draws the tempo as a line: flat while it stays the same, a jump where it changes at once, a slope where it changes gradually. Click it at a bar to open its menu:

• ♩ = the tempo from there on: drag it, or click it and type one. A new tempo adds a change at that bar.
• Get there: At once, as after a pause or at a new section, or gradually, over 1 beat, over ½ bar, over 1 bar, over 2 bars, over 4 bars or over 8 bars.
• Remove this change takes it away.

At bar 1 the menu sets the tempo the song starts at.

The strip labels each change as a score does: “♩ = 90” for a sudden one, “rit. → 60” for a gradual slowing down, a ritardando, and “accel. → 140” for a gradual speeding up, an accelerando. Songs often slow down at the very end, and a ritardando over the last two bars makes an ending sound like one. Playing, and exporting a WAV or a MIDI file, follow the changes.

Time signatures

A time signature says how the beats are counted. The top number is how many notes make a bar, the bottom one which note: 4 for quarter notes, 8 for eighth notes, 2 for half notes. 4/4 is four quarter notes to the bar; 3/4, three, the waltz; 6/8, six eighth notes felt as two beats of three. Rhythm and meter explains them, and the odd ones such as 5/4 and 7/8.

The song’s time signature

Time, in the harmony keys, is the song’s time signature, with how many steps a bar has next to it. Open it to choose another:

• one click for the usual ones: 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 3/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8 and 12/8;
• or Any other: the top number, the bottom one (1, 2, 4, 8 or 16), and Beats grouped as, for meters whose beats are groups of two and three notes, such as 7/8 counted 2+2+3. Use 7/8 then sets it.

A new time signature for the whole song puts every bar’s notes into a bar of the new kind, and each bar lasts as long as before: a song at 130 BPM in 4/4 plays at 97.5 in 3/4, three beats in the time four took. The tempo changes move with it. The options at the top of the list, shared with the Library, say what else comes in:

• Drums: the drums of the Library’s style for that meter, such as a waltz for 3/4. Off, the song keeps its own drums, in the new meter.
• Chord and bass parts: how that style plays the chords and the bass. Off, the song keeps its own, in the new meter.
• Use style instruments and Use rhythm’s swing: the style’s sounds and its swing.

The status bar says what was done, as in “The song now plays Waltz in 3/4, every bar squeezed or stretched into a 3/4 bar”. Going back to the song’s first time signature gives back exactly the song you had, and Ctrl+Z undoes it in one step.

Changing time signature partway through

Right-click a bar number in the playlist: under Time signature from bar 5 is the same choice, for that bar and the ones after it. The bars before stay as they are, and so do the style and the instruments. Remove this change goes back to the time signature before it. The bar numbers show the time signature at bar 1 and wherever it changes, and the chord sheet writes it at the start of the bar.

Key changes

Picking another key in the Key menus moves the whole song to it, and a key change partway through names a new key from a bar on, without moving any note: both are in Keys and modes. The same right-click menu on the bar numbers has Key from bar 5, and the bar numbers write the key in blue where it changes.

Inserting and deleting bars

The bar numbers’ menu also has Insert a bar before, Insert a bar after and Delete this bar, which move everything after them, as on the chord sheet (see The chord sheet).