Meanspeed® Music Review

No one knows the Beatles as that as a man those in the know call “Jim Deluva.”  When I told Jim that one of the songs I was working with on precise tempo analysis, he had this to say, “I’ll tell ya, man, those triplets, they are quarter notes, man, don’t get tripped up.”  Good advice!  Deluva added: “…those optimistic choruses are all Sir Paul, the impatient verses were all John.  You can quote me on that, dude!”

And so it is, as Bill Clinton once bemoaned: everything you wanted to know and more about WE CAN WORK IT OUT on the internet.  Not thousands of opinions about the song: 100s of thousands of rogue opinions.   Still, try as I did, I did not see anything about any exact tempo in contiguous consecutive mapping form.  Thus, the New Jersey Free School rolls on, with the help of a Deluva and a Manningsan, and we do the work for.

BEATLES TEMPO - we can work it out - NJFS graph - 1012

Meanspeed®-Carlton Summary

song=We Can Work It OUt

performer=The Beatles

composer=John Lennon and Paul McCartney

average expected tempo/arithmetic mean speed=107.5 bpm

BEATLES TEMPO - we can work it out - NJFS graph -

File Kind=MPEG-1, Layer 3 format

Bit Rate=320 kbps

Sample Rate=44.100 kHz

Encoded=iTunes 8.0.2.

Time measurement equipment=ONLINESPORTS.COM

Equalizer Software=JoeSoft’s *amazing* HEAR

Hardware=Apple, iPhone and MacBook

Use of Microsoft=ZERO

Commentary=James Deluva

BEATLES TEMPO - we can work it out - NJFS graph 8

Tempo Infographics=Mariano Carlton and James Manningsan, with help from student [Jack Doe]

Song Suggested From=Harrington Park, New Jersey

Measurement location=Princeton, New Jersey

Tempo map synthesis=Kendall Park, New Jersey

average beat=~0.5880″

corresponding tone=458 2/3 Hz, 6 cents below Bb4, 466 2/3 Hz, 94 cents above  A4, the ubiquitous 440 Hz.

key played=C major, bridge in G major and B minor.

most interesting use of harmony=IV/IV right away: going from D to C major after a mere 2 measures.  Way bold!

most remember lyrical section =Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friends – I have always thought that it’s a crime!

I need to repeat this at least once a month: the “beat extractor” programs are horse shit.  Ask ANY dancer!  A beat can fall on a silence, a quiet chord or loud melody part or in between.  As mammals, we can interpret where the beat is just as you know when despite all their practice a musician just doesn’t “have it” – as a musical Ivan Lendl, though I date myself, a musical Pat Sajak.

Sajak just could not do the Johnny Carson slot.  He didn’t have that spark as that of a David Letterman, Craig Ferguson or Ricky Gervais.

So beating the Peter Principle Pat Sajak went *back* to Merv Griffin’s WHEEL OF FORTUNE.  A computer program would have an easier time telling you, after “watching” why Craig and Dave and Ricky are 11:30 pm funny and Pat Sajak is 7:30 pleasant.  Everyone has their place.  Similarly, every noise has its place in a beat, and the emphasis there is NOT discernible by MixMeister or CuBase or anyone – its work, that if its to be done at all, is human – kinda like telling me why Jane Austen is still relevant.  I’m sorry: nothing but iUNIVERSAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE would even come close.  I know what you’re thinking: using a *simple* calculator to divide 52 by 4 to get 13 is artificial intelligence to the extent I’m relying on same calculator.  And my Gosh, we are, like, so beyond that!  I have heard that whining for over 20 years from people who will not accept scientific truth: unique, usable, repeatable information I give here is a tough pill to swallow.  You do not know as much as you thought you did.  Neither did I!  When I DID figure out the phantasmagoric yet simple patterns of tempo, I thought 1) this has to be a huge base for knowledge on this, but, 2) if there was not, *I* was stuck with spreading the truth of it, even while trying to keep up with continuing practice as a lawyer.  Lawyers as scientists are like, hated, man.  I know that.  But let me tell ya something: any of you that saw the Paper Chase?  Read Scott Turow’s wildly correct, detailed _One L_: we learn as lawyers not to assert that which we cannot prove.  It’s too embarrassing.

/IAS/

/JM/

/MC/

New Jersey Free School/Meanspeed® Music Nonprofit Music Education

February 21, 2010

All I need is a song that was popular in 1984.  Its composer and performer, JACK WAGNER of the BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL® of the fantastic CBS® television “daytime” drama, looks, sounds and behaves much as he did over 25 years ago.
In mean speed music’s conjecture, songs that are in the range of 63-69 bpm are songs of ritualistic romance which is traditionally sensual if not impliedly sexual.  Songs between 70-76 bpm are predictably calm, poised, disposed to kindness: in short, graceful and quietly confident.
This song grabbed my ear the first time I heard it, mainly because of the excellent songwriting in the hook, where Jack jumps an octave when he sings “need” in the chorus, as the bass line moves up a strong major third, from the tonic A to C#.  This is a move, as was shown, or heard  in the film OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN as the theme by Jack Ni

All I Need - tempo map by the St. James Charter School

etchze used the same progression in D major, literally lifting one up from D to f# the g natural to A and back.
Upon measuring Jack’s song last night, I thought: this is going to be about 88 to 92.  I got hit with the BAD DAY by Daniel Powter Sounds faster than it is effect.  The two songs have tempos that are literally the same, and because of the happy sub-rhythms the song sounds quicker.  It sounds quicker to me anyway.
The point is, though, that taking either song’s lyrics *alone* one would have a really (seriously really) hard time figuring out the real mood behind the performer.  Yet the even 70 beats a minute in both song tells me, and is a product of a NATURAL OCCURRENCE – no  invention of mine!   I can even do long division and Cartesian graphs.  The speed spectrum as it occurs in nature is something that is there to be enjoyed (or not) to help you control your mindset and mental speed and, as all music, first: HAVE FUN!  When you know that All I Need is 70 – well, that’s kinda cool.  But when you realize that Let It Be, The Chairman’s VERY GOOD YEAR, and Elvis’ Can’t Help Falling In Love with You are literally the same speed, the power you will feel is limited only by YOUR imagination.  Find a speed you love, get into a zone: running, your swimming, walking, cooking, exercising with a lover in bed: the power’s is yours to take.  Apple® has at least 100-500 apps 99¢ or less that with a few taps will tell you basic and useful bpm.  Steve Jobs: he provides a fantastically excellent in use and pure genius: a bpm column which you not only self-control by pressing Control+I on a highlighted song and entering bpm in the information section.  The musicians: hate it.  Why?  It is like telling how Penn & teller do their illusions: many act like arrogant brats who wish they could copyright speed itself as, well, how DARE I find what they exposed in THEIR tempo.  Too bad.  These are mostly the old bands who never saw the Internet cutting into profits, in same cases, that have led to suicide.  Compact disc “box set” revenue was going to keep Foreigner and David Crosby rich forever.  As a musician, each song I present I morally demand myself to PURCHASE, as this song was purchased from iTunes® from Apple´® for 99¢, not a 1989 $25 cd of Jack’s “greatest hits” where, well, I love this song, his others I am just getting warmed up to.

All I Need - tempo map by the St. James Charter School 2

My point?  The business changes, and a great performer as that of a Ronn Moss or Jack Wagner of the *world”s most popular drama, by far are enhanced when one plans for the future.  With the 1970s Player BABY COME BACK and the song discussed, supra, these two men *planned* a life for beyond their “young and pretty” years. The irony: the music keeps them young, as they both look tremendous for their age, and high-definition television is another element of the business both artists rolled with.  Learn from Wagner.  Learn from Moss: when you hear that groove that inspires you, tap it into your iPhone, or write and ask me to feature it, and you can go anywhere you want.  Find your psyche speed, and the power is just something that must be experienced to feel, like drinking great coffee.

/Ian Andrew Schneider/
Meanspeed® Music with the
St. James Charter School of New Jersey
Kendall Park, New Jersey
December 23, 2009

“I’m just 5 minutes from America,
but you can’t get there from here”
- Kevin Costner & Modern West

Copyright © 2009. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Happy Holidays to all at the B & B® + Y & R®!!!  Rock on CBS®, rock on.

“Here Comes The Sun” is a song written by George Harrison in the garden of Eric Clapton’s manor home in England.  George was in a state of joy when he wrote the piece, as the final album by the Beatles, Abbey Road, from which the meanspeed® school contemporary map was synthesized.  

"Here comes the sun, and I say: It's Alright" - the late GEORGE HARRISON. Tempo map by the meanspeed® school

Here Comes The Sun / iTunes® by Apple® screenshot from the meanspeed® school

song=HERE COMES THE SUN  

composer=GEORGE HARRISON  

performer=THE BEATLES  

album=ABBEY ROAD  

arithmetic mean speed/expected average tempo=129.8 bpm  

file kind=MPEG audio file  

size=7.8 MB  

bit rate=320 kbps  

sample rate=44.1oo kHz  

format=MPEG-1, Layer 3  

channels=Stereo  

ID3 Tag=v2.2  

encoded with=iTunes® 8.0.2  

tempo maps, bpm measurements, graph synthesis=Ian Andrew Schneider and Newman Neumann  

negotiation with the George Harrison Estate=Mr. Joseph Daluva  

I have heard many opinions about feelings and emotions in regard to Here Comes The Sun.  So said, search as I did for any trace of a precisely accurate tempo calibration or map left me very high and very dry.  So as we do, Newman and I did the work.  Hope you can use it.  

/Ian Andrew Schneider/  

Newman Neumann  

The Meanspeed® School  

October 2, 2009  

happy birthday to my wife N and Sting and Michael Rutherford and John Lennon all you styling “children of early October”