On August 7th, 2008, The Police will end their extended and most excellent reunion tour at Madison Square Garden, located between 31st and 33rd streets and 7th and 8th Aveue in New York City, once the coolest place on earth, now just a mockery of itself.

On August 5th, 2007, the Police opened their show with the song called “Synchronicity II,” a song that has always been my favorite Gordon Sumner/Sting composition.

Meanspeed Music will be examining the song in detail in four ways in a four part series.

In each analysis, the song will be broken in four different ways in one manner. Specifically, in today’s post, as with all the others with Synchronicity II, we will show contiguous measurements of 10 beat groups. Today, we will show the measurement beginning on beat number 2 – the first backbeat. In parts 2-4 of this series, the measurements will begin on beat 1, beat 3 and beat 4 respectively. Each time, we will be able to see the degree to which measuring the speed of this song beginning on a different beat affects the overall meanspeed contiguous calibration chart.

We have no idea what the results will be.

Speed Summary, Synchronicity II from beat 2, the first backbeat -
beats measured=760
mean time=4 minutes, 45.4 seconds
mean speed/objective tempo=159.8 beats per minute
average beat=376 milliseconds
mean phase=2.66 cycles per second
corresponding pitch=681.6 hertz, 57 cents>E5=659.3 hertz, 43 cents>F5=698.5 hertz.

Ian Schneider
Sarah Jane Bristol
James C.C. Manning
June 11, 2008