SMOOTH - Rob Thomas - Carlos Santana - meanspeed contemporary tempo map - the speed of foreboding 2
The psychology of determinism and fatalism enters in to play because without the underlying un-ease that 116 beats per minute almost always brings to a song of that speed. The SECRET of “Smooth” simply the speed. Look at the list of hundred of songs at or with 114-118 bpm, on this page or anywhere else you can correct and vouched for as precisely right to an 80/81% bpm, the pattern of foreboding expression smacks you in the face, as if to say this is clear to the point of obvious – how could no one have noticed this before? Here, right in the middle of this haunted speed, a rocking song about the anger a man has when argues woman he loves, casting a haunted, foreboding shadow both over their relationship and a shadow over the song itself.
What is foreboding, anyway? Courtesy of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate 11th edition: coined c 14 c.–an omen, prediction or presentiment esp. of coming evil: portend. Most useful: the descriptive word “foreboding”‘ is the presentiment or foretelling which indicates that the speaker/singer/musician feels an indescribable force–often, as noted, a bad omen. Then again, as anyone knows who has been in a situation where all hopes seemed dashed by a terrible sign of things to come, all matters about which you stress resolve with a positive ending .
SMOOTH - Rob Thomas - Carlos Santana - meanspeed contemporary tempo map - the speed of foreboding 1 copy
The average beat, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on this live recording= 116.1 beats per minute.
The average beat= 517 milliseconds.
The mean slow phase= 1.94 beats per second.
The corresponding tone= 495.36 hertz.
SMOOTH - Rob Thomas - Carlos Santana - meanspeed contemporary tempo map - the speed of foreboding 1 copy
SMOOTH - Rob Thomas - Carlos Santana - meanspeed contemporary tempo map - the speed of foreboding 2 copy
/Ian Andrew Schneider/
September 27, 2010
this is an updated version of an article published here on October 12, 2007
