Re: Changing midi-tempo within score

[Simon Albrecht]

On 08.01.2017 19:15, Flaming Hakama by Elaine wrote:
>     So if the composer wrote a tempo indication, use \tempo; if the
>     composer didn’t write anything and it’s just a tempo modification,
>     use the latter.
>
>
> This strikes me as odd:  when would you change tempo unless it was 
> indicated by the composer?

It’s a quite modern idea that you’d have to keep one tempo throughout 
the piece (came up after WW I, as is shown by early recordings). In 
earlier music, there are often situations where it’s obvious that the 
tempo has to change although nothing has been indicated by the composer, 
or at least it enhances the music and expression to not have a rigid 
approach here. I understand there’s a quotation by Beethoven which 
essentially says „the tempo indication is for the first bar“. And one of 
the meanings of ‘adagio’ is ‘free in tempo’.

> I guess my question would be: does anyone else use \tempo for things 
> like rit., accel. and a tempo?

Yes, I do, because it’s semantically the most appropriate. In fact, I 
have even gone to the length of creating the attached library file, 
which not only creates a semantical music function, but also easily 
enforces consistent layout for all these agogic marks.

Best, Simon

agogic-mark.ily
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