Stevie Wonder, SUPERSTITION - tempo graph by Jimmy Mahnning - for meanspeed music school

The #74 ranked song on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Song of All-Time is call

ed “Superstition” was a single from the album Songs In The Key Of Life.

Stevie Wonder, "Superstition" - Tempo Map by meanspeed® music's neil winters. © 2009.

Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder is the single best musical effort where one person was the key operative in composition, performance of all instruments and production. That is only my word and opinion, by definition personal and therefore not speaking on behalf of the Meanspeed Music Company in general. This is just the staff having some fun. We know: James and his Beatles! To which Sophia and I usually reply: it’s not a single effort, as Stevie’s. So, James, enjoy your day off, you will get a chance to speak. I’m not My fine man, even factoring the fact that Stevie is blind-Songs In The Key Of Life is a better effort than Band On The Run, as much as we love that also. James Manning, this is my message, as I did your work for you today: the “Stevie Wonder is a musical genius” joke? No joke!

James just called. Jeff Beck is the guitarist on this song–uh oh!

ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE EXPLAINS
Wonder debuted this hard blast of funk live while opening for the Rolling Stones in the summer of 1972, intent on expanding his audience beyond Motown. The twenty-two-year-old former child star had written it at the drum set, humming the other parts to himself. Wonder had been collaborating with Jeff Beck and initially intended for Beck to record the song, but when Beck hadn’t finished his album it became the first single from Talking Book — and Wonder’s first Number One hit in nearly a decade.

The speed summary -
meanspeed=101.3
mean emotion=natural
phase=1.69 cycles per second
average beat=592 milliseconds

corresponding pitch=432.21 Hertz, 68.5 cents above G#4/Ab4=415.305 Hertz, 31.5 cents below A4=440.000 Hertz.

/Ian Andrew Schneider/
Meanspeed Music School
July 31,2008