Monthly Archives: September 2011

“I walk a lonely road, the only road that I have ever known” – Billie Joe | How BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS by Green Day presaged the Greatest Depression: economic hopelessness to the point of family isolation. Tempo breakdown with tempo maps, bpm scans, video and the Speed of Solitude.

Posted by Ian A Schneider on

As to the greatest song in the speed range 0f 79-85 beats per minute, Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Billie Joe and Green Day and performed by Green Day is the most exemplary. Of the 10s of thousands of papers and analyses of the song, I found that this linkhttp://www.lyricinterpretations.com/Green-Day/Boulevard-of-Broken-Dreams was very good.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams_Green_Day_Family_Company_Business_tempo_infographic

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams_Green_Day_Family_Company_Business_tempo_infographic

I did a speed analysis of the song, which to me puts the family, business and company life of the United States in a harsh garish yet gloomy doom of isolation. Looking at a depression in a huge geographically spread out lonely country as the United States, the idea of the family becomes that which can make you feel alive during a Greater Depression, one that was coming like a slow unstoppable freight train when this song was at its peak – which is now. It was popular in 2004 at its release, but feeling it now is getting wearisome especially as year 11 of war shows little sign of ending.

If one has a business, one cannot find a company.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams_Green_Day_Family_Company_Business_bpm_scan_7746

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams_Green_Day_Family_Company_Business_bpm_scan_7746

If they were part of a company, then fired, many had few specific skills or businesses possessed, and ultimately the most dreaded loneliness, that of having no family or community hurts hardest.

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - impressionary words 2 of 2.jpg

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - impressionary words 2 of 2.jpg

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - impressionary words 2 of 2

Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - impressionary words 2 of 2

Other songs that are within 1% of Boulevard of Broken Dreams with the shared element of speed exposing mood:
Goodbye To Love, The Carpenters, 82.9 bpm
Broken Arrow, Rod Stewart, 83.0 bpm
Breakdown, Guns ‘N’ Roses, 83.1 bpm
Not Enough Love In The World, Don Henley, 83.2 bpm
Dear Mr. Fantasy, Traffic, 82.4 bpm.

Ian Andrew Schneider
Kendall Park, New Jersey
September 29, 2011

Chris Brown: "FOREVER" – An Artist Forgiven + Tempo Broken Down. Median Expected Tempo=120 Beats Per Minute

Posted by Ian A Schneider on

Today I heard WABC’s Dr. Max Gomez call “alternative” therapies ‘complementary’ therapies. I liked that a lot. I want people to use the ideas and tempo mastery of their own powers. However, I *believe very much in Western medicine*. What I suggest is: with meanspeed® music therapy:
1) you may need less medicine, or none at all;
2) your medicine might become more effective;
3) you may realize that for your condition tempo mastery is keeping you from getting ill.

There is nothing like dancing to a great groove, and there is no better way to master a groove than to be familiar with the tempo: precisely so you will not have to think about tempo while you dance. In this song from 2008 that is still making many, including me on an embarrassing day, dancing in 2011.

The tempo graph synthesized here is a result of 2,421 consecutive and contiguously calibrated half notes. Okay, I started 9 hours ago and my wife is not pleased that I didn’t make it into bed tonight. So said, we took a day off to watch the New York Jets practice in our home state of New Jersey. Chris Brown is what Michael Vick is about, we hope – that is, a man admitting committing acts that were spontaneous and evil when, where the men have apologized and convinced *me* anyway that they are sincere and will find joy in their new lives of empathy, FOREVER

Chris+Brown-Forever-bpm_scan-tempo_chart_120_beats_per_minute

Chris+Brown-Forever-bpm_scan-tempo_chart_120_beats_per_minute

The video shown, courtesy of Google®’s YouTube® and the RIAA® has a mere, uh 74 MILLION views.

Annie Sullivan Jackson Speed Summary
song=Forever
performer=Chris Brown
arithmetic mean speed/median expected tempo=120.0 beats per minute
average beat, with the quarter note getting the beat in common time=exactly 500 milliseconds or 1/2 of one second
tempo diagram=Ian Andrew Schneider
featured on, among other places=The Office® by NBC® TV

Love to all,
Ian Andrew Schneider

American ANGER In Folk Songs of Protest- WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? – Natalie Merchant Re-creates 1930s protest song – A Tempo Breakdown – Diagrams, Frequencies, Video.

Posted by Ian A Schneider on

Terrible times are scattered around, and tonight we couldn’t sleep (no one in the Annie Sullivan Jackson house).

tempo diagram - Natalie_merchant-Which_Side_Are_You_on-bpm_scan_property_New_Jersey_Free_School_2

tempo diagram - Natalie_merchant-Which_Side_Are_You_on-bpm_scan_property_New_Jersey_Free_School_2

So we measured the speed of the song that seemed to fit the self-righteousness of the non-criminal element of the country: 99%.  That one percent, as we have seen, can ruin life for the rest though.

In a similar morality battle between right and wrong as that which the United States is undergoing now, the PUBLICLY available wikimedia in part writes:

“Which Side Are You On?” is a song written by Florence Reece in 1931. She was the wife of a union organizer for the United Mine Workers in Harlan County, Kentucky. In 1931, the miners of that region were locked in a bitter and violent struggle with the mine owners. In an attempt to intimidate the Reece family, deputies hired by the mining company illegally entered and searched the Reece family home. Sam Reece had been warned in advance and escaped, but Florence and their children were terrorized in his place. That night, after the men had gone, Florence wrote the lyrics to “Which Side Are You On?” on a calendar that hung in the kitchen of her home. She took the melody from a traditional Baptist hymn, “Lay the Lily Low”, or the traditional ballad “Jack Munro”. Florence recorded the song and it can be heard on the CD Coal Mining Women.

tempo diagram - Natalie_merchant-Which_Side_Are_You_on-bpm_scan_property_New_Jersey_Free_School_1

tempo diagram - Natalie_merchant-Which_Side_Are_You_on-bpm_scan_property_New_Jersey_Free_School_1

Reece supported a second wave of miner strikes circa 1973, as recounted in the documentary Harlan County USA. She and others perform “Which Side Are You On?” a number of times throughout.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Which_Side_Are_You_On%3F

Performer=Natalie Merchant

Album=The House Carpenter’s Daughter

Mean Speed/Median Expected Tempo=69.7 beats per minute

common tone=297.4 Hertz

Average Beat Length=861 milliseconds

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON is an American folk song whose anger about Unions in the 1930s fits the mood of the curent events regarding “money” in the United States.

Ian Andrew Schneider

Annie Sullivan Jackson House

August 2, 2011