Hello,
I have a project I am working on and would love to be able to insert tempo changes by sort of inserting them while the song is playing almost like a conductor would while directing the orchestra. I know I can draw things in after the fact but would love to be able to do something in real time to capture the moment and feel. Appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks,

Hey Simeon,
The way I do it is I listen in real-time and as the change happens I press the "M" key.
This inserts a Marker on the fly. I then go back later and make adjustments to the tempo.
 
There may be other ways but im not sure of any. Hope this helps.
 

There is a little-known feature I read about, but have never tried yet, that may help you. If you record an audio track, you can drag it onto the time ruler and Sonar will analyse the audio and will add the tempo changes based on it automatically. So, you could record a midi part free hand, bounce it to audio, then drag it onto the time ruler.

The Fit to Improvisation technique is something very useful too.

http://soundbytesmag.net/tempo-thelastdawfrontier/

I experimented with conducting tempo in Sonar over 10 years ago by using Bome's midi translator and Glove pie. Created a script to spit out midi time code in realtime by conducting the tempo with a wii-mote. I had sonar set to sync to timecode. It was lots of fun to use! Worked very well! Nothing better than conducting your Vienna Symphonic library! I hope to make than just a prototype one of these days as it is the missing link to the puzzle. I know that doesn't help you now, but it's good to know I might have a future customer. 😄 If you work with the drawing tool enough, you'll get used to drawing it in. Just conduct along with it and draw in the corrections till it's perfect.