The tempo in MakeMusic Cloud's Playback Controls and Assigner can appear incorrect or inconsistent in pieces with tempo changes due to the fact that they will always refer to the original tempo and will not update to any written tempo changes later in the score. This can cause some confusion when assigning or starting playback after a tempo change as the tempo needs to be scaled to the original tempo if you need to perform faster or slower.

The following piece Kyiv begins at 72 BPM and changes to 120 BPM at m. 30.  Let's say that you would like to perform Kyiv at 100 BPM, a much faster tempo than the original tempo of 72 BPM. The music would play back at the expected 100BPM.

However, if you keep this same tempo selected at the next tempo change, the tempo would not continue to play at either 100BPM or at 120BPM but would play around 170BPM. This is due to MakeMusic Cloud retaining the same ~40% faster scaling going from the original 72BPM to the 100BPM.

This scaling is reflected in the Assigner as well and will need to be kept in mind when assigning specific tempos to students. If you need to assign students an exact tempo, you can use a tool like a percent change calculator to use the original tempo to determine what to set the assignment tempo too. As an example, if you wanted your tuba players to play m. 37 at 130BPM instead of 120BPM, you could take these steps: 

*Please note that this will not be applicable for gradual tempo changes like ritardandos and accelerandos*

1. Determine the Percent difference between 130 and 120. (~8% faster)
2. Calculate what tempo would be 8% faster than the original 72BPM tempo (~78 BPM)

Please contact MakeMusic Customer Support by selecting Submit a Request at the top of the screen if you have any additional questions.