This speed graph depicts the two performance lines, mean speed lines and linear trendlines of the song Phase Dance by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. This song was used for years as the CBS version of Good Morning America/Today as its theme song.

Phase Dance was first released as a studio recording in 1978 by the Pat Metheny Group consisting then of Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Mark Egan and Dan Gottlieb. In 1983, Phase Dance was released as a live recording from the album Travels which featured the same three musicians, with guest Nana Vasconselos and was a Grammy winner in 1983.

For at least 5 years, I know that the Group would have a predicable routine when they opened. As the “roadies” made final stage checks, music would be playing as people were seated. Before taking the stage, the stage producer would play the Earth, Wind and Fire song Way Of The World, which is a song with pretty melodies, harmonies, horns and falsetto voices. Way Of The World also features words or word phrases that imply beauty–“heart of gold” “plant a flower” “child is born”. The trick, whether anyone was doing it on purpose way this: The Earth, Wind and Fire song is approximately 82 beats per minute, somewhere in the middle of the speed range 79-84 beats per minute where most songs imply Loneliness.
After Way Of The World ended and the stage was set, the Group would enter the stage as the lights went down, and opened the concert playing Phase Dance as the first song–that was true until the group toured in 1987 in their Letter From Home tour and started opening with one of the most underrated songs of all time, Have You Heard, also composed by Pat Metheny. Intended or not, the psychological effect of going from the middle of Lonely to the anticipatory rattle and “hum” of the audience, to playing a song in the middle of where I have identified where songs indicate Enthusiasm, 90-97 beats per minute was effective.

The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on the studio recording= 90.0 beats per minute.
The mean-speed, or the speed of the song expressed as beats per minute on the Travels recording= 96.8 beats per minute
The mean-space, or time between each beat on the studio recording= 667 milliseconds between beats.
The mean-space, or time between each beat on the Travels recording= 620 milliseconds between beats.
The average beat on the studio recording = 1.5 beats per second.
The average beat on the Travels recording = 1.61 beat per second.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second on the studio recording = 1.5 Hertz.
The mean-frequency, or the speed of the song expressed as cycles per second on the Travels recording = 1.61 Hertz.
Each of the frequencies correspond to the tones, in equal temperament, in closest in proximity with Ab/G#– where the Ab4=415.305 Hertz, which=24,918.3 beats per minute, divided in half 8 times (256)=97.3 beats per minute, and G natural, where G4=391.995 Hertz, which=23,519.7 beats per minute, again divided by 256=91.9 beats per minute. Where (For more on tones and their correspondence to beats per minute, see Stephen Jay’s theories, esp. The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm, linked with Stephen’s kind permission on meanspeed.com).
The graph is based on a spreadsheet generated with this method:
a) I calibrated the (quarter-notes) ten times with Nike 300-lap stopwatches;
b) Ten trials were entered, averaged and coordinated.
using Microsoft’s Excel, created in on Windows XP, on Gateway hardware modified by Microsoft’s Excel for MacIntosh 2004 on an Apple iBook G4 as hardware.
The linear trendlines are courtesy of/derived with same Microsoft Excel program.

Best, from the home of the New York Mets,
Ian Schneider
April 4, 2008