“NO WOMAN, NO CRY” – BOB MARLEY & The Whalers: Do YOU PREFER the studio version or bittersweet live version? DIFFERENT TEMPO & EMOTIONS
No Woman-radar tempo graphic - Bob marley and the whalers - meanspeed music modern tempo map - radar
When the Meanspeed staff asked me to measure the speeds for the song and create graphs that would visually explain speed, I was struck that though the studio version of the song is that which is cited by “The Stone,” it is in fact the *live* version that we have all come to love.
No Woman No Cry-tempo graphic-music tempo
The two versions are so radically different from each other I decided to illustrate both. The studio version is played with the help of a metronome, is 98.6 beats per minute, never getting any slower than 97.5 bpm, never any faster than 99.5 bpm. You can easily hear on the 30 second iTunes free sample how relatively canned and cheesy the original is.
In all cases below the screen shots of the numerical coordinates were the measurements used for the corresponding speed graphs above.
Cue: the live version we have all come to love! Not only is there much tempo movement and no metronome use, the mean speed of the song is 78.2 bpm, almost 20 beats per minute slower than the original. For purposes of meanspeed music theory, the song is a *classic* example of the haunting bittersweetness of that tiny area of 77-78 beats per minute. The expression here, as in the meanspeed and bittersweet range songs such as Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton, The Lady In Red by Christopher De Burgh , Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers, Times of Your Life by Paul Anka–in a laid back reggae groove. warm, analogue, live on stage.
/Ian Andrew Schneider/
meanspeed® music school
May 15, 2009
