Mikey1969 - I don't think it has anything to do with the frame rate adjustment. We have always had problems similar to this. The animation (such as it is) is timeline-based. It is actually a stretch to call it animation. It is really just arrows appearing and disappearing over the beats to be sure that every student follows the music notation.
Do you think I should be on some computer processor forums to see how I can maximize - or really focus - the processor resources rather than thinking it is something that can be done in Flash?