circa

[Anders Hedelin]

In the old times there were very few tempo marks.
I had tempo marks (without c. ca. ca etc.) in one of my compositions, but in one performance the musicians chose tempi that were far too fast. What to do? Sue them?
I've made quite a few engravings respecting the composer's notation of 'circa' tempo marks. Maybe it works as an excuse: "I said it was 'circa'"!

[musicus]

Good comment. Makes one wonder why that kind of composer would indicate the tempo in the score.
Is it about publishing norms? So the publisher would say something like "You gotta put in a metronome marking - even if you don't want to." (I go back and forth on this issue. Sometimes it must be just so, sometimes it's a ballpark.) Beethoven valued the metronome but put an insane marking on his hammerklavier which hardly anyone observes. Well, they do observe it, in the other sense.

Or the conductor/performer will play it at whatever tempo they like, regardless of the instruction.

I often tell a story about a 'well-known composer', who came into a Cathedral, where he could hear one of his pieces being played on the organ.
He found the Organ Scholar at the console, and said "Lovely playing; but why are you doing it at that speed?"
The Scholar replied: "That's the metronome mark in the score."
"Oh, I shouldn't pay any attention to that...."

[OCTO]

K. Stockhausen has something like 93.6 markings, I believe he wants to get EXACT tempo transition (ratio).

[Anders Hedelin]

K. Stockhausen has something like 93.6 markings, I believe he wants to get EXACT tempo transition (ratio).

For me that's a reminder of the sad times when composers tried to be scientists. As if being a musician wasn't enough.

[hautbois baryton]

K. Stockhausen has something like 93.6 markings, I believe he wants to get EXACT tempo transition (ratio).

For me that's a reminder of the sad times when composers tried to be scientists. As if being a musician wasn't enough.

For every composer that tries to reinvent notation my response is always "why should I bother to puzzle out your music?"

[Fred G. Unn]

K. Stockhausen has something like 93.6 markings, I believe he wants to get EXACT tempo transition (ratio).

I've seen way more decimal places than that in Film and TV work. I was in the "house band" for a Netflix show a few years ago, and we routinely had parts with multiple decimal places like quarter = 146.94345 or something ridiculous like that. Of course, that's the tempo from the composer's DAW as it was timed exactly to the video on screen. As goofy as that looks, it was really to make sure the click was set correctly when we had to record to a click track. If we were recording a longer track, then we wouldn't be in sync with the screen, any virtual instruments, or samples by the end of the take without that sort of precision. Of course, if I was the copyist, I would have simply put quarter = 147 in the parts for the musicians, but these longer decimal markings are pretty common now in studio work, even if pointless for the performer to see.

Adam Neely had a fun video on why these are "cringe" a year or so ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUHEPmg0sPo