Minor keys and lust meanemotions: silence as Dark and Lustful, THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE, performed by Simon & Garfunkel, in D minor
These are three speed charts of the song The Sounds of Silence, one of the themes for the movie The Graduate, by Simon & Garfunkel.
This song: another in our continuing series of what happens when you put a song on a minor key—or rather—it was in a minor key (sad key) anyway, and the results are such: in this song, what would be an other wise TV-theme from the 1970s type syrup-like sound IF the song had been in D major. It is not in D major. D minor—the saddest key of all, according to Christopher Guest in This Is Spinal Tap—just think of the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, Bach Piano Concerto in D Minor—one of the most amazing pieces ever.
And so here: a lot of sad surreal ethereal eeriness, mixed with the speed of lust—and here you have the makings of a base of what has become a true classic for the ages of popular Western music.
The frequencies for The Sounds of Silence are:
mean speed, Expected Average Tempo=106.4 beats per minute
mean-emotion according to the meanspeed music school=LUSTFUL
average length, beat- herem a quarter note=564 milliseconds per beat.
average length, whole note=2256 milliseconds per measure.
beat phase=1.773 cycles per second.
meanpitch=453.97 Hertz, 53.5 cents above A4=440.000 Hertz and 46.5 cents below A#4/Bb4=466.164 Hertz.
/Ian Andrew Schneider/
New York, NY
13 August 2006
revised and extended June 1, 2009 at Kendall Park New Jersey
