“GONNA FLY NOW” is by
Bill Conti. The:
mean-speed=94.1 beats per minute,
mean-space=638 milliseconds between beats,
mean-beat=1.57 beats per second,
mean frequency=1.568 Hertz
mean-tone=401.49 Hertz, 41 cents higher than the note G4=391.995 Hertz and 14 cents and 59 cents lower than the next corresponding note in equal temperament, G#4/Ab4=415.305 Hertz. 

This song falls squarely in the speed and emotional correlate of Enthusiasm.

The songs which occur in this speed range have predictive expressions of themes dominated by a confidence and enthusiasm. As: being so looking forward to an event that you say to yourself: “I am so excited about what is about to happen I almost don’t want it to begin. Also, I am confident, I have earned this moment.” In a similar way, this is the speed of “Getting ready: and as I get ready, I realize how much I love what I’m about to do. I don’t look back. I’ve made mistakes but I’m always moving ahead.”
This is the speed of controlled strong, positive energy.
The quote by Stevenson applies: “It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.” As you will notice in the twelve examples below, the songs are radiant in the happiness in the journey itself.

This song by Bill Conti brought tears–literally–to Sylvester Stallone‘s eyes when he presented it to him as the proposed theme from Rocky.

This song is all about the journey to get ready for the chance of a lifetime.

The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated groups of every single measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coordinated and synthesized.
I the created the speed graph in Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. One of the graphs derived from the results, in a radar graph style was printed on an Epsom CX4600, scanned on same printing device.

For a list of 1000s of songs at 12 speed categories, they are available at meanspeed.com.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com

Best, from the home of the New York Mets,
Ian Schneider
14 June 2006

 

This song, Mercy, Mercy, Me by Marvin Gaye gave rise to an element of counterintuitive use of song speed. Here, we are seeing, in action, The (full!) Marvin Gaye Effect.

The numerical coördinates are a celebration of my not giving Google my numerical coördinates so they can do me the “favor” [serious cough] of storing my numbers. The four sheets above were needed to create the charts–and because they were entered and synthesized in Microsoft’s Excel for Mac, if they want the numbers they already have them. Whatever. Now that www.meanspeed.com is so into completion, I will be concentrating on songs that are applicable s day-to-day news. A speed blog–not very original, but amazingly effective. Those of you who herewith this theory will not be sorry–and it is not for “DUMMIES”–then again it is for anyone who likes music.

Specifically, the song was written 1960s as a protest song. Marvin lamented the declining globe, lamented the ecology (as may do the global warming now), we were warned of “fish full of mercury”–a small example of the way “things ain’t what they used to be.”

One afternoon I called a radio show at National Public Radio and asked the author of What The Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Popular Culture , Dr. mark Neal why “[if you take the protest and negative lyrics out of Mercy Mercy Me and What's Going On, they sound like they could be love songs. How would you explain that?].”

Professor: “[That is an excellent question [[I was humbled]], because Marvin was, in the Black Movement the Martin Luther King figure–he protested, but he had a gentle and approachable way. On the other hand, you had James Brown, the Godfather of Soul and Malcolm X, that were In Your Face types of protesters. Marvin was a ‘kill them with kindness’ man.

According same MARK NEAL, Albany Professor, Marvin was very affected by the drafting and deployment of his brother to Vietnam. Both Mercy Mercy Me and What’s Going On were originally songs for a do-wap type of all woman quartet–very upbeat stuff. But Marvin felt he had to “take those songs back.”

So anyway, here’s a song at the speed of enthusiasm and confidence and exuberance–and the lyrics here are about people killing the earth makes for a psychological juxtaposition that does not match what is expected–hence “The Marvin Gaye Effect.” Oh, we’ll be talking about T.M.G.E.! Another Day In Paradise , We Are The World, we’ll see the pattern that with the notable exceptions of Neil Young and the late Harry Chapin in particular, wherein *other people’s pain* is always bearable–hence the songs about being homeless song at a natural speed, free-flowing rhythm, when you are,well, extremely wealthy yourself and have to imagine being a person of opposite gender, different skin color, different country, all with no money–hey, it won the Grammy for 1991 Song of the Year, the only one of Phil’s 7 ...But Seriously nominations to win in 1991.

Here, Marvin is trying to relate–and he did–to Americans across all cultural lines. I remember this song as a small boy in a little caucasian town in northeastern New Jersey. This was an absolute “cross-over” song–and Mercy Mercy Me has been covered 100s if not thousands of times.

If anyone can carry out this experiment:
find subjects that speak no English and play this song–and ask–was that a love song or a protest song? I’ll be here at ian@meanspeed.com waiting for you. Thanks!

The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on this live recording= 93.4 beats per minute.
The mean-space, or time between each beat= 642 milliseconds.
The mean-beaton the recording = 1.557 beats per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second= 1.557 Hertz .
The mean-tone= 398.51Hertz, located 72 cents above G4= 391.995 Hertz , and 28 cents lower G#4/Ab4= 415.05 Hertz. Therefore, the frequency is 28% higher than G4, and 72% lower than the next note equal temperament, G#4/Ab4=415.05 Hertz. For more on tone frequency, sound vibration and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen’s kind permission on meanspeed.com.
The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated groups of every single measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coördinated and synthesized.
I the created the speed graph in Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. One of the graphs derived from the results, in a radar graph style was printed on an Epsom CX4600, scanned on same printing device.

For a list of 1000s of songs at 12 speed categories, they are available at meanspeed.com.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com

Best, from the home of the New York Mets,
Ian Schneider
8 June 2006

meanspeed

 

Times Of Your Life, You and Me Against The World, Cat’s In The Cradle, The Lady In Red, Tears In Heaven–oh boy–a lot of meanspeed songs to take in–thanks for hanging in with those vital songs.
Time to get away from all that languid bittersweet material–for a day–hah!– and swing back into the go-go 1980s and some bold decisive lustful desire music.

In the summer of 1986, Robert Palmer released a song called Addicted To Love, represented by the four speed charts displayed here.

Palmer wrote this song in a dream–and most people still remember it for its video, which featured 4 (or was it 5?) models who pretended to be musicians but in fact were just, well, gorgeous tall women playing Air guitar, Air bass, and so on. Many “union” musicians protested the use of “non-musicians” in the video. (Musicians are a sensitive lot indeed). Funny thing is that Palmer and the women were not even in the same room when the video was shot. Ha!

Robert Palmer was a true English gentleman in the true sense of the word. His sings were well structured, and Palmer was a humble man of great looks, great style, fantastic music–and no need to brag about any of it. What a loss for everyone–Robert seemed to be getting better with age–like that of a Jack DeJohnnette, Herbie Hancock, Carlos D. Santana, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Keith Jarrett, Bruce Hornsby, Paul Simon, Tony Banks and Peter Gabriel among them.
Ok–a look at the 4 graphs above. Note that all four charts are based on same numerical coördinates, based on the averaging of 10 trials of every quarter note, with the line on the chart representing how the song moved from one speed to the next by way of collecting four quarter note and marking the speed of each measure– a “moving average of 4 quarter notes.” We can see that although the speed trend of the line is absolutely even, time is liter [stolen] from one measure to the next, making for a dynamic song. That dynamism can also by seen in Robert Palmer‘s Addicted To Love on the radar graph at the top of the article.

What about the two black and white graphs? Well, that’s the way normal humans, like me, hear the music. The chart with the Y-axis expanded to embody the fastest music, bebop, at 330 beats per minute, add the slowest of any ballad I’ve ever heard, 30 beats per minute. The chart magnifying the performance by cropping the Y-axis to the meanspeed theory areas, 55-128 beats per minute represents how someone with a great ear might hear it.

In other words, without the fantastic availability of quartz 300 lap stopwatches–such by Seiko being the easiest and most accurate in my experience, I could never come near the posted charts.

The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on this live recording= 111.7 beats per minute.
The mean-space, or time between each beat= 537 milliseconds.
The mean-beaton the recording = 1.862 beats per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second= 1.862 Hertz .
The mean-tone= 476.58 Hertz, located 37.5 cents above A#4/Bb4= 466.164 Hertz , and 62.5 cents lower B4= 493.883 Hertz. For more on tone frequency, sound vibration and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen’s kind permission on meanspeed.com.
The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated groups of every single measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coördinated and synthesized.
I the created the speed graph in Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. One of the graphs derived from the results, in a radar graph style was printed on an Epsom CX4600, scanned on same printing device.

For a list of 1000s of songs at 12 speed categories, they are available at meanspeed.com.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com

Best, from the home of the New York Mets,
Ian Schneider
7 June 2006

meanspeed

Again today, we return to the meanest speed—Bittersweet, 77-78 beats per minute—as, if you “get” this speed, when you can really start to feel the uniqueness of this frequency, the rest of my theory falls into place around this category.
The song: THE LADY IN RED by the performer Chris DeBurgh.
This is a basic popular music chord progression, and it has a normal melody with an bridge and secondary dominant section. The overall production, specifically the lush keyboards The lyrical content of the song can be summarized as one man’s tribute to a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress on a beautiful evening. So what makes the song bittersweet?—why would people play it at funerals? I think the answer lies in the song, which indicates that with the sweetness of the night moment itself, which DeBurgh in the song promises he’ll “never forget,” the bitterness lies knowing in: this is as good as it gets. Nothing can live up to this moment.
Shocker: This song this is a popular song at funerals—and that is according to writer/performer Chris DeBurgh himself. The song is extremely popular in every form, from Muzak to live wedding performance covers, and this I find to be true across age, culture, race in my home city of New York. Also, especially after the first minute, that simply has a relentless meanspeed groove going through it.
By speed performance, The Lady In Red is one of those that sounds, much like Prince’s performance on drums in Purple Rain, like a drum machine, but it’s really a percussive part recorded live. Then again, this could be another possibility, as this is often done in the studio: use of a drum machine and then creating speed movement through digital device. This is being done more and more as I write in April 2006, and very soon on /recording will have the properties whereby one can detect whether a song was recorded live or in the studio. “Static” does not imply any negative element—it simply means this: the underlying tempo does not move. Why is this done in music? Well, for one thing, it allows countless numbers of musicians to record on the same track with being in the studio live at the same time. Things evolve.
The overall trend line for the song shows that from start to finish the song accelerates 7-9%. That is using averaged numbers. A better way of looking at the speed here, and it is exactly why this is called Mean Speed Theory and not Average Speed Theory is that as you can easily see from the graph, the song’s speed is split into two sections in the song, where the during the first minute the songs are still at 76 beats per minute, at the edge of the group of grace, but by the time the first chorus has come, the song moves around, as you can see, essentially between 76 _ and 77 _ beats per minute. I can imagine a version that slows down to, such as, ceremonial, and I can guess that the song would sound more self-confident, less “death aware.” 

This song is an archetype of the bittersweet category the Meanspeed defined: 77.459666… beats per minute. The square root of 60 seconds is 7.746 seconds. Divided this square root by 10, is .77459… seconds, the same amount of space when the tick of the clock speeds the “second-hand” to the square root of 60 multiplied by 10: 77.459… beats per minute.
This central of central speeds points us to the space which provides a range where there seems to me a cluster of songs that literally hang in a languid way in the air. The love and confidence found in the class of grace turn bitter, to fear and languid introspection.
Bittersweet is defined as an adjective in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’s 11th Edition as simply: “1: something that is at once biter and sweet; esp.: pleasant but including or marked by elements of suffering or regret”. Thefreedictionary.com: “tinged with sadness”, “both bitter and sweet at the same.” Merriam-Webster Online dictionary provides “pleasure alloyed with pain”. Interesting definition there, because other dictionaries have the pain and the pleasure reversed, as in thefreedictionary.com’s “tinged with sadness”’. Dictionary.com offers this definition: “1. both bitter and sweet at the same time 2. Producing or expressing a mixture of pain and pleasure”.These songs: themes are dominated by the best and the worst of times remembered, the joy and the sorrow, the laughter and the tears. This speed tends to bring out the memories with the deepest of emotions. The songs are the types that show that feeling of being choked up on memories themselves.
This emotion is lump in the throat speed. This speed is the “trying not to cry in public and failing” speed. It is arguably more embarrassing, or makes one more self-conscious, anyway, when you actually spend energy to show you are emotionally virile enough not to cry, and then just lose it—than just crying: the Long Goodbye speed—or the I Hate Goodbyes speed. If interested, take a look at the blog entries in this category, or the list on Meanspeed.com.

The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on this live recording= 76.9 beats per minute.
The mean-space, or time between each beat= 780 milliseconds.
The mean-beaton the recording = 1.28 beats per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second= 1.28 Hertz .
The mean-tone= 328.107 Hertz, located 8 cents above D#4/Eb4= 311.127 Hertz and 92 cents lower F4= 349.225 Hertz. For more on tone frequency, sound vibration and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen’s kind permission on meanspeed.com.
The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated groups of every single measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coördinated and synthesized.
I the created the speed graph in Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. One of the graphs derived from the results, in a radar graph style was printed on an Epsom CX4600, scanned on same printing device.

For a list of 1000s of songs at 12 speed categories, they are available at meanspeed.com.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com

Best, from the home of the New York Mets,
Ian Schneider
06.06.06

meanspeed

 

It’s time to explore the mean speed again. YOU AND ME AGAINST THE WORLD by performer Helen Reddy has that speed right down the middle, 77.4 beats per minute, bittersweet defined.
Like Tears In Heaven and Cat’s In The Cradle, this is another song about the death of a child, mixing the joy of a parent and child who get along well, love each other, and vow to be together lose innocence of childhood and the future. Helen sings about a future memory, “And when one of us is gone, and one of us is left to carry on/Then remembering will have to do/our memories alone will get us through/think about the days of me and you” end a series of sublime bittersweet memories. The emphasis on memory, child-parent passage of time and giving into languid feelings soak this song in emotional expression. In the song, Helen’s real life daughter speaks, and it’s practically ‘Times Of Your Life’ tear-jerking. I was a about 8 years old when this song was popular, and it gave a sound to the affection and love I had for my mother, and the fear I would have when, as the song says: “When one of us is gone/and one of us is left to carry on.” The uncanny thing to me also about the line is the almost eerie premonition that the child might pre-decease the parent. Melbourne, Australian born Helen Reddy sings about her as the parent taming a child’s fear at a circus. Even more uncanny decades later, Conor Clapton’s last time with his dad, wherein they were said to [be forming a fantastic band since Eric’s abandonment of narcotics and alcohol], was at the circus in New York in over 15 years after Reddy’s popular song.
Much, if not most, of the time is played at the speed of the category of Lonely. As with other songs at Bittersweet speed, we see movement back and forth between beatific love and dire loneliness. In the song, as you can see, there are two major fermatas (tempo breaks)—here, the tempo does not stop entirely—rather, there is a quieting down, beats falling in silences, but the tempo never comes to an actual stop. These fermatas seem to keep the song in love and confidence and not let the fear of death let insecurity about life take over. As a linear trend from the beginning to the end of the song is a deceleration of 2-3 percent.

All the graphs on this page come from the same set of numbers, which are available on request.

The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on this live recording= 114.2 beats per minute.
The mean-space, or time between each beat= 775 milliseconds.
The mean-beat on the recording = 1.29 beats per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second= 1.29 Hertz .
The mean-tone= 330.24 Hertz, located .6 cents above E4= 329.628 Hertz, and 19.0 cents below the next note in proximity, F4=349.225 Hertz. Put another way, the tone is between E4 and F4–3% higher than E4, 97% lower than F4. For more on tone frequency, sound vibration and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s theories, esp. The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen’s kind permission on meanspeed.com.
The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated groups of every single measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coordinated and synthesized.
I the created the speed graph in Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. One of the graphs derived from the results, in a radar graph style was printed on an Epsom CX4600, scanned on same printing device.

For a list of 1000s of songs at 12 speed categories, they are available at meanspeed.com.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com

Best, from the home of the New York Mets,
Ian Schneider
4 June 2006

meanspeed

In a review on measpeed.com in 2005, I had written this about Rob Cannillo and Friends song Move Yourself To Love:
“Track#3-114.3 beats per minute. (mixed, 108-116 beats per minute). This reminds me so much of the 55 versions of Dave Matthews’ ‘Too Much’ (played at Clinton’s 2nd Inaugural bash) that I’d recommend tracking those songs played back to back. Other songs of similar speed, “Hang On Sloopy,” The McCoys, 114.2 beats per minute. “All Along The Watchtower,” Hendrix version, 114.5 (107-118). And of course, “prove It All Night” by Bruce, 114.7 beats per minute.” 

Since the time of my statements above, I asked Rob about featuring one of his songs on meanspeed.blogspot.com. Like the generous person he is, Rob said, go ahead! Robe wrote this about the song:

“Ian,
thanks.
Some thoughts. Move yourself to love was recorded live in the studio. We
did 2 takes and we used the first take.
I guess I was trying to express that we can change, change for the positive.
People respond very positively to Move Yourself. It’s a fun vibe(especially
live) and it’s got a sing along type chorus and a positive message.
When we do it live, it starts to take on some long, cool jams.
Thanks again and I am glad you took the time to review my songs.

Thanks,
Rob
www.robandfriends.com”

Above are graphs, all of which are based on the same set of numbers.

The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on this live recording= 114.2 beats per minute.
The mean-space, or time between each beat= 525 milliseconds.
The mean-beat on the recording = 1.903 beats per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second= 1.903 Hertz .
The mean-tone= 487.25 Hertz, located between A#/Bb and G natural, n equal temperament=466.164 Hertz B4=493.883 Hertz. . For more on tone frequency, sound vibration and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s theories, esp. The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen’s kind permission on meanspeed.com.
The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated groups of every single measure (four quarter-notes) ten times with Seiko 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were averaged, coordinated and synthesized.
I the created the speed graph in Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware. One of the graphs derived from the results, in a radar graph style was printed on an Epsom CX4600, scanned on same printing device.

For a list of 1000s of songs at 12 speed categories, they are available at meanspeed.com.

Coffee courtesy of Meredith and Jeff Schneider of TexasRoast.com

Best, from the home of the New York Mets,
Ian Schneider
3 June 2006

meanspeed