Setting Tempo

Define your tempos first

We highly recommend defining all of your tempos before you start creating pages and writing drill. Our tempo group editing is currently very limited. Changing the tempo may force you to delete pages.

We are working on it! (Issue #512)

Tempo drift

The tempo alignment currently tends to drift when playing long show chunks. Quickly pausing and playing typically syncs the music back up.

We are working to fix this! (Issue #432)

Defining tempos in OpenMarch is how we keep the drill aligned with the music. There are two ways to define tempos -

Manually inputting tempo groups

Importing a MusicXML file Experimental

What is a tempo group?

Tempo groups are collections of measures that have the same time signature and tempo

Groups that have the same time signature and tempo are combined into a single group, unless the second group has a name. (I.e. A or Closer)

Creating tempo groups

Manually creating a new tempo group

Open the Music tab and you will see the following form -

When creating a tempo group, you have the following options -

• Name: An optional identifier used to differentiate the tempo in the timeline.
  • This is useful for rehearsal marks like A or Closer
• Start tempo: Beats per minute (BPM) that the tempo group starts at
• End tempo: Beats per minute (BPM) that the tempo group ends at
  • This is optional and will default to the start tempo if not provided
• Beats per measure: The number of beats in each measure. Or, the time signature’s numerator
  • I.e. a time signature of 4/4 has 4 beats per measure
  • See Mixed meters for information on how to handle mixed meters
• Number of measures: The amount of times this tempo group should repeat
  • Note, if an End tempo is provided, this will stretch the tempo change over the number of measures

Mixed meters

1. Set the Beats per measure to a number greater than or equal to 5
2. Click Make mixed meter
3. Choose a Beat Pattern

A few notes on mixed meters:

• The tempo defined in the Start tempo represents the quarter note’s BPM
  • I.e. a tempo of 144 means the quarter note is 120 BPM and the dotted quarter note is 180 BPM
• Tempo changes with mixed meters are not automatically calculated
  • This is why you cannot set the End tempo for a mixed meter tempo group
  • You can manually define the tempo change by editing the tempo group and adjusting each beat’s tempo
• The only supported mixed meters are meters that mix any pattern of 2 and 3 eighth note groupings
  • You may go all the way up to 30/8, if you every want a mixed meter of 3+2+3+3+3+3+3+2+3+2+3 or any other permutation

Importing a MusicXML file

Experimental

Importing a MusicXML file is in it’s early stages and may not work for all files. This is especially problematic for files with mixed meters and complicated time signatures.

To import a MusicXML file, follow these steps:

1. Open the Music tab
2. Select Import MusicXML
3. From the file popup, select the MusicXML file you want to import
4. You should see the tempo groups populate in the Tempo tab and beats in the timeline!

Tapping tempo

Very experimental

Tap tempo is in it’s extreme early stages. It works, but the user experience will likely be tedious and frustrating.

Please let us know if you find the tap-tempo feature useful, as we aren’t predicting that many people will use it.

Tempo tapping is not very polished and is currently all-or-nothing. You must tap all in one shot and will need to start over if you make a mistake or need to edit.

1. Press the Edit button in the timeline
2. Click Tap new tempo to delete all existing beats and start fresh
3. Start at the beginning of the audio by pressing Rewind
4. Play the audio by pressing Play or Space
5. Tap the tempo
   • Use the number keys [1-9] to tap the tempo
   • Press the number that corresponds to the beats in the measure, or the time signature’s numerator
   • For example in 4/4 time, press the 4 key
   • Press the key at the downbeat of each measure
6. Pause the audio by pressing Pause or Space
7. You have three options:
   • Save the new beats by pressing Save
   • Retry the tap tempo process by pressing Restart
   • Cancel and go back to your old beats by pressing Exit

All keyboard shortcuts are disabled during tap tempo

Keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl + R are disabled during tap tempo.

To exit the tap tempo session at any time and cancel the process, press Esc.

Editing a tempo group

Editing limitation

Currently, only the Name and Start tempo can be edited. We are working to expand this functionality! (Issue #512)

Simple Groups

Simple groups are tempo groups that maintain a consistent tempo. These can be mixed or simple meters.

Custom groups

Custom groups are groups where each beat’s tempo is defined individually. These groups are always a single measure.

Deleting a tempo group

To delete a tempo group, simply click the trash icon in the tempo group’s menu. When you see the confirmation dialog, click Delete to delete the tempo group.

Deleting tempo groups

Deleting a tempo group will delete all of the pages that use that tempo group. This can be undone, but still proceed with caution.

We are working on a better way! (Issue #512)

FAQs

What about time signatures like 2/2, 3/2, etc?

OpenMarch doesn’t actually care what the time signature’s denominator is. It just cares about the Beats per measure (or time signature’s numerator).

With this, you can define a 3/2 in the same way you would define a 3/4 time signature. All you need to do in this case is set the Start tempo to whatever you the half note’s BPM is

Fun fact

The only information that OpenMarch stores is the number of seconds that each beat is. I.e. TEMPO BPM divided by 60.

For example, 120 BPM would be 0.5 seconds per beat, and 80 BPM would be 0.75 seconds per beat. This is why you can define a 3/2 time signature as a 3/4 time signature and expect the same result.

I made a mistake! How do I change the number of measures in a tempo group?

Currently, you can’t :(

What you can do in the meantime is delete the old tempo group and create a new one with the correct number of measures.

We are working on a better way! (Issue #512)

Can I add tempo groups in between existing tempo groups?

Yes! Just press the + button in the tempo group’s menu.