CAVATINA_meanspeed_3-748094_2
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CAVATINA_meanspeed_3-748094_2
'Cavatina," Stanley Myers,
CAVATINA_meanspeed_3-748094_2
CAVATINA_meanspeed_3-748094_2
'Cavatina," Stanley Myers,
Cavatina is a short piece of music, a nylon Spanish acoustic piece by Stanley Myers written for and played in the 1978 Academy Award winning best Film of 1978: The Deer Hunter. Cavatina is used during a scene when the character being played by Robert DeNiro is sitting alone, in the dark in a musty old hotel looks across at a party made for him upon his return to the rolling hills of Clairton, Pennsylvania from Vietnam.
The situation in the movie is this: It is 1967, and three of the strong young men working the steel mines are ripped from their lives when then are drafted into the Army during the Vietnam [conflict]. We are shown the normal, small town industrial steel life, the close bonds of the friends—Christopher Walken and John Savage–in town, a quick wedding before “going off to war,” those men who wee not [fit] for war—George Dzundza and the late John Cazale.
The war scenes are so violently mindful of the horrors and cruelty that the soldiers in the infantry are involved. In addition, we are shown horrific prison camps, the heroism of caring for one’s fellow soldier, the glorification of war for those who don’t fight at home or simply do not have a clue of the level of “societal” breakdown in a war-torn country.
The song, a waltz and here seen in graphs calibrated in groups of one measure (three quarter notes) and at 80.1 beats per minute, in the Meanspeed theory category of Lonely, 79-84 beats per minute, is indicative of a piece that expresses loneliness. And personally, I have never seen a better dialogue-free scene where the music said more than words ever could.
Cavatina is played as the leader of the friend-soldiers, DeNiro, is out on “leave.” Having no idea what he had been through, having no idea how indescribably barbarian what he and his friends are still going through, the families—among such characters: Meryl Streep–at home form a “Welcome Home” party for Mike, DeNiro’s character. Thinking, though, about the situation of his friends that are still in Vietnam, thinking about how no one at the “party” would even want to know how tragically sick the carnage Mike has seen is, Mike simply decides to watch the party from the hotel across the street.
The scene is extraordinary: by this time in the movie, we have traveled where the families have not, and we understand why DeNiro’s “Mike” is watching the surreal gathering alone. The most odd twist on the scene is how we never get to remember or even think about what the Savage and the Walken characters are doing at that point.
I’ve talked to as many Vietnam veterans as I could about how “real” this film is compared to others. Most indicate that it is a bit hyperbolic, but that is what is necessary in order to drive home the point of the story: unless in you were in a war, or a particular war zone, the barbarity of it all is not the “glory glory, hallelujah” any non soldier, like me, may fantasize it is. It is, as a wiser person said before me, hell.
Happy Memorial Day to every America man and woman who has served and been injured or killed in fighting for my freedom. THANK YOU. The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute= 80.1 beats per minute.The mean-space, or time between each beat= 749 milliseconds.
The mean-beat= 1.335 beats per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second= 1.335 Hertz.
The mean-tone= 341.76 Hertz, where each of the frequencies correspond to the tones, in equal temperament, to between an E4=329.628 Hertz, which=19,777.7 beats per minute, again divided by 256=77.25 beats per minute, where the closest proximity is with the note F natural,– where the F4=349.228 Hertz, which= 20,953.68 beats per minute, divided in half 8 times (20,953.68/256)=81.9 beats per minute. For more on tones and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with the author’s kind permission on meanspeed.com.
The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated the (quarter-notes) ten times with Nike 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were entered, averaged and coordinated.
using Microsoft’s Excel, created in on Windows XP, on Gateway hardware modified by Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware.
The linear trendlines are courtesy of/derived with same Microsoft Excel program.
The photo on top is called “Old Guard at Arlington National on Memorial Day”–photo courtesy of the United States and the bravest person in my family, United States Army Captain Jeff Schneider.
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