Meanspeed® Music Review

On the show the Young and the Restless, the characters J.T. Hellstrom and Vicki Newman are going through a divorce: http://theyoungandtherestless.wetpaint.com/page/JT+and+Victoria -

To calm their son Reed, JT asks  Victoria to sing a lullaby to Reed over the phone.  The tempo graphic on the page is a precise and exact *note for note* visualization of reproduction of her vocal tempo line. (you can follow it – the last bar is a silence.  I would write the lyrics inside but this one is just too easy to follow – if you get lost remember – the last “down” of the first verse is the lowest line as compared with the y-axis, the slowest note of the short piece *exactly at note 7 as seen on the x-axis.   According to the mean speed music hypothesis, the 66 1/3 BPM arithmetic mean average speed is indicative of love, tradition and ceremony.  Amelia Heinle as Vicki sings the perfect lullaby as you can see and hear.  Similar songs at this speed include MIND GAMES by John Lennon, THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD by the Beatles, YOUR SONG by Elton John and MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY by Natalie Cole.  Try some mash-ups of your own playing with songs around 63-69 bpm – you have nothing to lose, and there is a power in tempo familiarity.  When you are singing your child’s lullaby tonight, you may want to keep the tempo in mind.

Speed is not the most important element of a song – tonality, harmony and melody all completely trump tempo as a source of fell – so said, once a sound or “feel” is established, the overlooked element of tempo is the key to who you are going to like to listen to or not: it’s all about groove sometimes, we all know this!.  Also, sing any musician can produce that “lush” or “wet” reverberated orchestra sound by merely touching a plastic knife to a keyboard, the talent these days really comes out in the timing more than in days before such excellent electronic reproductions of orchestras.

"I love you too mommy"

Meanspeed-Carlton Summary

song written by=Traditional

song title=London Bridges falling Down

performer=Amelia Heile as Victoria Newman on the CBS® drams THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS®, the best drama on television, day or night IMO

arithmetic mean speed=66 1/2 bpm

average beat length=904.5 milliseconds

beat frequency=1.103 Hz

corresponding tone=282.89 Hz

Of note, Amelia demonstrated relative tempo where she still controlled the feel of the 66.  The speed could not be any more perfect for the sweet ritual of a lullaby from mom.

meanspeed® music nonprofit music education

/Ian Andrew Schneider/

April 27, 2010

Kendall Park

(James Manningsan is on assignment)

Cubase®, the mediocre company, was looking at the post contained on this site on the Led Zeppelin song called STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.  Unable to recreate anything I did by computer exposes Cubase®’s severe limits and over-representations of its quality.

stairway to heaven gtr solo - NJ Free School - image symmetry

I received an email from same Cubase® asking in angry envy: “oh yeah, what is the speed of the SOLO?”

Only after a phone call from same company told me to PUT UP OR SHUTUP did I decide to put the solo up, all 20 measures, beat by beat.  Eat it, Cubase®.  For the rest of y’all: do not look at it if you want to keep your “mystery” element of the song.  Anyone wanting to see the solo: the admission is priceless, therefore, FREE.

stairway to heaven gtr solo - NJ Free School - LOVE

This is the solo, recreated by a YouTube guitarist, in question:

James Manningsan and new intern OLIVIA STRAIGHT worked days, days and many days to make sure our measurements of tempo correct, because it is not every day one can talk back at the bold-yet-irrelevant arrogance at Cubase®, America’s biggest advertiser of tempo software that DOES NOT HAVE THE REQUISITE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO “DISCERN” exactly where the beat is.  If such software existed, robots would have been outdancing humans for over a decade.  CUBASE: how ya doing ay those silent beat algorithms?  Be real, Cubase: I love you all, but I would appreciate candor and a STOPPING OF HYPERBOLE AND FSALSE PROMISES!  Look what happened to the Stanford fraud.  Look at how MixMeister is being exposed for that which they can do well – same as you – and that which they cannot, same as you.  Who is buying this?  As the Beatles said, “THINK FOR YOURSELF.”

/Mariano Carlton/

/James Manningsan/

/Oliva the intern/

march 29. 2009

NEW JERSEY FREE SCHOOL/meanspeed®-carlton time measurement

The tempo maps of the great song “Song For The Boys” from ONE QUIET NIGHT, recorded by Pat in NYC, alone, in one night, are featured in this post.

Have a great day.

Ian Andrew Schneider

JAMES MANNINGSON

meanspeed®-NJ Free School

march 4, 2010

Princeton, NJ – 38.0 degrees