No one knows the Beatles as that as a man those in the know call “Jim Deluva.”  When I told Jim that one of the songs I was working with on precise tempo analysis, he had this to say, “I’ll tell ya, man, those triplets, they are quarter notes, man, don’t get tripped up.”  Good advice!  Deluva added: “…those optimistic choruses are all Sir Paul, the impatient verses were all John.  You can quote me on that, dude!”

And so it is, as Bill Clinton once bemoaned: everything you wanted to know and more about WE CAN WORK IT OUT on the internet.  Not thousands of opinions about the song: 100s of thousands of rogue opinions.   Still, try as I did, I did not see anything about any exact tempo in contiguous consecutive mapping form.  Thus, the New Jersey Free School rolls on, with the help of a Deluva and a Manningsan, and we do the work for.

Meanspeed®-Carlton Summary

song=We Can Work It OUt

performer=The Beatles

composer=John Lennon and Paul McCartney

average expected tempo/arithmetic mean speed=107.5 bpm

File Kind=MPEG-1, Layer 3 format

Bit Rate=320 kbps

Sample Rate=44.100 kHz

Encoded=iTunes 8.0.2.

Time measurement equipment=ONLINESPORTS.COM

Equalizer Software=JoeSoft’s *amazing* HEAR

Hardware=Apple, iPhone and MacBook

Use of Microsoft=ZERO

Commentary=James Deluva

Tempo Infographics=Mariano Carlton and James Manningsan, with help from student [Jack Doe]

Song Suggested From=Harrington Park, New Jersey

Measurement location=Princeton, New Jersey

Tempo map synthesis=Kendall Park, New Jersey

average beat=~0.5880″

corresponding tone=458 2/3 Hz, 6 cents below Bb4, 466 2/3 Hz, 94 cents above  A4, the ubiquitous 440 Hz.

key played=C major, bridge in G major and B minor.

most interesting use of harmony=IV/IV right away: going from D to C major after a mere 2 measures.  Way bold!

most remember lyrical section =Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friends – I have always thought that it’s a crime!

I need to repeat this at least once a month: the “beat extractor” programs are horse shit.  Ask ANY dancer!  A beat can fall on a silence, a quiet chord or loud melody part or in between.  As mammals, we can interpret where the beat is just as you know when despite all their practice a musician just doesn’t “have it” – as a musical Ivan Lendl, though I date myself, a musical Pat Sajak.

Sajak just could not do the Johnny Carson slot.  He didn’t have that spark as that of a David Letterman, Craig Ferguson or Ricky Gervais.

So beating the Peter Principle Pat Sajak went *back* to Merv Griffin’s WHEEL OF FORTUNE.  A computer program would have an easier time telling you, after “watching” why Craig and Dave and Ricky are 11:30 pm funny and Pat Sajak is 7:30 pleasant.  Everyone has their place.  Similarly, every noise has its place in a beat, and the emphasis there is NOT discernible by MixMeister or CuBase or anyone – its work, that if its to be done at all, is human – kinda like telling me why Jane Austen is still relevant.  I’m sorry: nothing but iUNIVERSAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE would even come close.  I know what you’re thinking: using a *simple* calculator to divide 52 by 4 to get 13 is artificial intelligence to the extent I’m relying on same calculator.  And my Gosh, we are, like, so beyond that!  I have heard that whining for over 20 years from people who will not accept scientific truth: unique, usable, repeatable information I give here is a tough pill to swallow.  You do not know as much as you thought you did.  Neither did I!  When I DID figure out the phantasmagoric yet simple patterns of tempo, I thought 1) this has to be a huge base for knowledge on this, but, 2) if there was not, *I* was stuck with spreading the truth of it, even while trying to keep up with continuing practice as a lawyer.  Lawyers as scientists are like, hated, man.  I know that.  But let me tell ya something: any of you that saw the Paper Chase?  Read Scott Turow’s wildly correct, detailed _One L_: we learn as lawyers not to assert that which we cannot prove.  It’s too embarrassing.

/IAS/

/JM/

/MC/

New Jersey Free School/Meanspeed® Music Nonprofit Music Education

February 21, 2010