Finale Forum

Hello,

I have picked up guitar in my retirement and have relatively limited experience with Finale. I would like to use finale to help me improve my rhythm by slowing down the tempo and building up my skill to the full tempo of songs. However, I find that when I adjust the tempo using the playback control on the tool bar, there is no change in timing.

I am not attempting to use the MIDI or use the record functions at all. I’d just like to listen to the playback on my laptop computer. As I peruse the manual and help documents, it is clear that Finale is a very comprehensive program with many facets for the more serious players and composers who have a much greater understanding of music than I. But there must be a simple way to accomplish a change in tempo that I have overlooked. Can you please help?

Thank you in advance.

Bob - Finale 2012/Windows 7 user.

Welcome to the forum!

Three things control the tempo in Finale:

Tempo Tool (= the recorded tempo changes)
Expression Tool (= the expression tempo changes)
Playback Controls

And they work in a hierarchical fashion.

The tempo in the Playback Controls is overridden by an Expression that sets a tempo.
This is overridden by the Tempo Tool, which is at the top of the "Tempo Hierarchy".


In Other Words:

Since the you need to control the playback tempo via the Playback Controls, and since the tempo in the Playback Controls is overridden by Tempo Tool changes and by expressions with playback effect “Tempo”, you should first remove Tempo Tool changes, and next remove expressions with playback effect “Tempo”.

To remove Tempo Tool changes:
Edit menu > Clear Selected Items…
Click “None” to de-select everything, and click “Tempo Changes”.
OK

You can remove expressions in the same way (= Clear Selected Items), but you can also use the Expression Tool to,
- edit only the expressions that have playback effect “Tempo”, so that these expression have no playback effect at all,
or
- remove only the expressions that have playback effect “Tempo”.