the most famous drum riff ever recorded is the MOST INFLUENTIAL SONG TODAY- “In The Air Tonight”/Phil Collins – Full-Obama/Meanspeed-Carlton Analysis

Meanspeed Psychology of Tempo map - IN THE AIR TONIGHT - Phil Collins - Face Value - Archetype Speed of Enthusiasm - 94.8 beats perminute - 2

In-The-Air-Tonight-speed-graph-10-lines-In-The-Air-Tonight-speed-graph-scatter-Phil Collins - Face Value - speed of enthusiasm

In-The-Air-Tonight-speed-graph-scatter-Phil Collins – Face Value – speed of enthusiasm

Meanspeed Psychology of Tempo map - IN THE AIR TONIGHT - Phil Collins - Face Value - Archetype Speed of Enthusiasm - 94.8 beats perminute

Meanspeed Psychology of Tempo map – IN THE AIR TONIGHT – Phil Collins – Face Value – Archetype Speed of Enthusiasm – 94.8 beats perminute

These speed graphs of “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, mean-speed=94.8 beats per minute. When this song was played during a scene on Miami Vice, television and movies were forever changed. Although most will not go on record saying it, the drum fill is the most famous ever recorded, and the song usupred Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven as the most *influential* song, period. One simply cannot write a contemporary song without considering Phil’s supreme genius here. I know many of you are laughing. That would be as when I informed the Genesis newsgroup in 1995 that Dave Matthews had the best drummer of contemporary music, namely, Carter Beauford of Virginia. I was flamed, laughed at – we know how that goes. Try to get a ticket to see Dave now. It’s not funny that the $2,000+ it costs to sit within 10 rows of the stage is a joke. In New York it is at least $3,000. In other words, you can “LOL” about my assertion that In The Air Tonight still holds as the pop song that has not been toppled – but I stand by it. Stairway to Heaven toppled Hey Jude. And Air knocked the Stairway into #2 position.

Producers realized that scenes could be effective without dialogue as long as the suitable background music was playing. Three examples of how this takes form out now: a) movies, such as “Best Picture 2006″ Crash was a music-video deluxe,; b) television drama feature scenes that are actually music videos – Cold Case, the popular CBS series, features excellent music but not much dialogue;
c) both television and movies can be broken into pre-In The Air Tonight on Miami Vice and post. If one pays attention, the shift is as dramatic as the anachronisms we see now: no cell phones, New York City being represented by the Old World Trade center, destroyed by terrorist murderers on September 11, 2001. This song is about confident enthusiasm–many athletes use this song and songs at this speed to psyche themselves for competition.

When the Dallas Cowboys were coached by Jimmy Johnson for example, he used to play this song on a loop during team warmup. Ray Lewis, the linebacker from the Baltimore Ravens used to use the same tool. Said Most-Valuable-Player Lewis: “When I heard that song on Miami Vice, it just blew me away–it changed everything.”

Meanspeed®-Carlton Summary -
meanspeed= 94.8 beats per minute
average beat= 634 milliseconds
mean slow phase= 1.58 beats per second

Phil Collins - Face Value - speed of enthusiasm

corresponding pitch=403.63 Hertz, located between and G4 and an Ab4. In equal temperament, G4=391.995 Hertz, which= 23,519.7 beats per minute, divided in half 8 times (256)= 91.9 beats per minute. The next closest tone by frequency is and Ab4=415.305 Hertz, which=24,918.3 beats per minute, divided in half 8 times (256)= 97.3 beats per minute. For more on tone frequency, sound vibration and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s theories, esp. The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen’s kind permission on meanspeed.com. The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated groups of every measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coordinated and synthesized. I the created the speed graph in Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware.