John Lennon – His Two Favorite Slow Tempos: One, Buddhist, the other, Anglo-America. Tempo Analysis by the NJ Free School.

The Newman Scale, © 2006-2010

The Newman Scale, © 2006-2010

John Lennon had two favorite slow speed ranges.

His Anglo-American speed of slowness is embodied in the songs MIND GAMES.  As you can see by the Newman Tempo Scale, the songs with beats per minute (bpm) 63-69, ritual, ceremony and tradition are predictive of emotions of the one *expressing* the emotion.  Simply because the one who is expressing an emotion does not mean a thing about how one FEELS the emotion in response to the same song.

psychology-of-tempo-map-john-lennon-imagine-meanspeedc2aemusic-2009psychology-of-tempo-map-john-lennon-imagine-meanspeedc2aemusic-2009

When Howard “the Joe” Schneider wants to get psyched up for a tennis match, and needs a rhythmic tape loop to run in his head in order that he reach that FLOW state we all seek so much, he gets pumped by sings at this speed.  In fact, Bette Middler and Neil Diamond at this speed work well for *him*.  Me?  I can play pretty well when I get a 94 bpm thing going.

As Germans proved in the late 1800s (all subsequent tested and duly confirmed by people as that of a Mach, Getty, Epstein, Repp, Clynes, Sachs, Levitin) that a preference for speed is not a one speed fits all thing in two ways.  One, the speed that we LIKE to hear has no correlate as that which we play (even if we are not musicians – as Lennon/McCartney said, “Listen to the music playing in your head,” and that’s what we all basically do).  I tend to play like an old Irish dude playing 6/8 song at 150 bpm.  These anomalies were proven again by the French research professor PAUL FRAISSE.

OK: so you are thinking, well, man, doesn’t that mean all speed is relative, there are no absolutes?  My reply: yes, *people* are on each other more appreciative of some speeds more than others, and people will play the same speed with a savage propensity to stay THE SAME OVER DECADES , if not life.  So if you’ve followed this site alone, you have seen James Taylor speed, Elton John, Eric Clapton speed.  Not to say that every song by Taylor is recorded in studio at 72-76 bpm, where any time james hits 77 1/2 his unconscious hits a Too Fast switch, and slowed down.  Enter His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his assertion that 40 Hertz is the ideal prayer speed.  40 Hertz is 2,400 bpm. Cut in half 5 times: one gets 75 bom, the speed of perfect grace.  Enter the song A Whiter Shade of Pale.

HEY JUDE - The Beatles - meanspeed® tempo map / bpm graph 2 - potrait linear trend B

John Lennon was known to have spent much down time with Procol Harem’s song, the most played song in the history of England’s BBC radio (“we skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels cross the floor/I ws feeling kinda seasick/the crowd yelled out for more/the room was humming harder as the , etc/”) all a variation, recorded in the key of C and not the G as the song on which it is based: Air on the G String by Johann Sebastian Bach, in reality the second moment of JS Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Number II in D major.  The song is all 40 Hertz area: it’s that speed which the Dalia Lama preaches.  In that area, just by the Beatles: Let It Be and Hey Jude *define* this James Taylor area.  The song Imagine defines the same area.

HEY JUDE - The Beatles - meanspeed® tempo map / bpm graph 2 - radar

An unfortunate play on words in the phrase “mean speed music hypothesis” is that the reason James Taylor, Sir Paul McCartney, John Lennon and for you who need to know, 15,000 pieces of music all calibrated with digital sources using quartz/lap SEIKO digital and Nike digital timepieces, with much help in finding what give me the most precision, ONLINE SPORTS of Texas, UNited States, a company who has made a contribution to a FREE school – good people in that way, and I so encourage anyone wanting to make their own tempo maps, back my work up, or take my work and prove it wrong – and those of you who follow this site and want to make your own maps of the same songs: check them out.  Many people talk a good game when they say, “Oh, a free school based on learning music tempo.  What a great idea!”  But those who come up with the money for a severely NOT for profit are RARE, and ONLINE SPORTS stepped up on their own.  They did not ask for a mention, by the way.  I just spent over 12 year hunting down every retail store in all of New York City, including Paragon’s, Herman’s and Models, no one came close to the Texans.

As Rob Reiner once said, Enough of my yapping.  Look at what happens when the speed exceeds ~77.459666… beats per minute, ie √60″ x 10^-2 or .774569666…” between per beat.  Am I wrong?  Is the Newman scale oversimplified?  You tell me.

Best,

Ian Andrew Schneider

New Jersey Free School,

a division of the

Meanspeed® Music Company

February 6, 2010

(SPECIAL SUPER BOWL COMMENTARY BY  THE RIAA’s [Jim Deluva]:

“I’m guessing: Saints 41, Colts 37.  Shockey, Bush, Brees and a lack of men of size to stop them on the Colts side.  Jonathan Vilma leading Saints defensive attack that will show how Vilma received *nothing but A’s* in college.  Plus, 2005, Manning son, Peyton wins for Indianapolis.  In 2007, his Manning quarterback brother Elijah wins again for New York.  But of this greatest NFL family that ever was, and, given the probable player lockout next year, ever *will be* has never seen dad Archie’s New Orléans Saints in the equation.  Then again, there is the beauty of football: the athletic skills are so evenly matched, the practice and film study so extensive, that it will come down to a Good Day or Bad Day thing.   On a good day, Peyton Manning is not beatable – on a bad day, he is human as he nearly lost to the 9-7 Jets two weeks ago.  On a bad Day, Jeremy Shockety yells at his teammates for never getting a pass, gets a ball thrown his way and drops it – on a good day, Shockey plays with the ferocity of that of a Mike Singletary or Joe Klecko.  Reggie Bush has a perfect stage ti simple run over people and make us forget the best running back that has ti this point ever played – that 2,003 yard in 14 games Mr. Simpson.  So I’m thinking: OJ never even made the Super Bowl.  Reggie will lead the Saints to victory of he wants to turn the page on US history, 20th  —> 21st century”  – Jimmy Deluva – peace everybody!

Beauty Plus Unrequited Infatuation= Lonely: MELISSA, The Allman Brothers Band, meanemotion=Lonely, meanspeed=83.1 bpm

 

 

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 2

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 2

Melissa is a song written by the Allman Brothers band based on a beautiful little girl that they used to see in the supermarket between rehearsals & recording sessions.  From the many sources I have read, there is no one “official story” as to who the girl was and who exactly was so emotional about her.  You have to deduce it was as a Monet painting of beautiful young ballet dancers. The children are adorable, yet the expression of the artist is not pedophilia (except the Bay City Rollers drummer, and he did not write their songs, anyway), the effect us bringing one back to a scene of innocence at the most carefree time in life.  Perhaps this girl in Melissa, the song, looked like someone a Bother wished was 10 years older – the teacher falls for student thing.  The 10 year gap between you and your 10th grade English teacher might have made it criminal for the two of you to hold hands.  10 years later, you’re 25 and she’s 35, well, not such a big deal anymore.  I think this song is that type of lament. This YouTube comment says it all, – “I had not seen this version, yet ….Whatever version I see confirms to me that this is one of the saddest most beutiful songs written this century. Yet it makes me soooo happy to hear it!!!!” attributed to morjohnny540, on or about 6/9/09. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqeXZ-4kb60)

So if you feel blue that this song isn’t a confident get up and go anthem, that would be your explanation as to why: TEMPO ONLY.  As I always note, well, sometimes note, tempo is to a song what the weatherperson (Al Roker, Chris Cimino, Sam Champion) is to the news (Deborah Norville, Walter Cronkite, Wolf Blitzer).  The news is the *tone* fo teh song – and the melody.  The harmony is more important than tempo also.  So said, next comes rhythm – and though tempo comes last, like the weather report, turns out that the weather can effect everything reported by the Couric’s, O’Reilly’s, Gibson’s, Willimas’, Scarborough’s and Olberman’s.  God rest the soul of Timothy Russert, the last real reporter.   Requiem Eternum † – no one else is going to put a possible truth ahead of being killed.  I do not know that TR was killed.  Given the Smith & Wesson test, ie, gun to my head, wrong answer gets your head shot off: I was watching CNN in my father in law’s hospital room when the autopsy reults, unquestioned, were more detailed than other part of Tim’s death.  That was disturbingly familiar and similar to that which David Lipton wrote about JFK: that the newspapers in Australia knew of his death before the motorcade started – so much for the “land of the free and the home of the brave” – like this song, it gets more like the “land of the  corporate slave and the home of the diffident”

 

 

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education

  The Neumann-Carlton Summary  performer=The Allman Brothers Band album=Eat A Peach mean speed/average expected tempo=83.1 beats per minute. meanemotion=lonesome solitude mean beat=1.385 beats per second. average beat length=722 milliseconds per beat, a quarter note mean slow phase=1.385 cycles per second. mean pitch=354.560 Hertz, 27 cents above F4=349.228 Hertz, 63 cents below F#4/Gb4=369.994 Hertz.  So about an F.  Very sad, that tone of F.  Paul McCartney created a 50 year movement from understanding this. Ian Schneider NYC   this article is a revised and crisper version of that which was published on September 14, 2006.  As you can see, I also got very fancy learning that the color blue was subject to iPhoto® manipulation.  That one graph on the top looks way better than it used to – plus, WordPress gets the credit for holding it, not the disgraceful blogging service who’s names end in a word which rhymes with Fog’s Hot.  And diffident means- outrageously milquetoast weak when among others.  

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 3

contemporary tempo map - meanspeeed music public education 3