Pink Floyd · A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Signs of Life

Signs of Life is in B flat minor at 123.2 beats per minute.

Tempo

123 BPM · Allegromedian of 196 analyses · 109.1–123.8 across the middle eight tenths

Key: B♭ minor5 flats · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 97%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 196people who ran the extractor
One beat: 487milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 434.2Hz · -23 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 8.56dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.125Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 0.925Essentia's danceability, 0–3

Source: AcousticBrainz, dump of 2022-06-23 (CC0) · MusicBrainz core data, 2026-09-17 (CC0) · how each number is measured. Measured up to 23.06.2022 — AcousticBrainz stopped collecting in 2022, so nothing released after that date is here.

What the numbers say

196 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. All but a handful of them — 97% — put it in B flat minor, a key signature of 5 flats. The tempo printed above is the median of the 196 readings; 82% of them land within 2% of it, and the middle eight tenths of them run from 109.1 to 123.8 BPM.

At 123.2 BPM one beat lasts 487 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 121.8 ms and a dotted eighth 365.3 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 61.6 BPM, counted twice as fast 246.4. A score would mark that Allegro, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 434.2 Hz, which is 23 cents below concert A at 440 Hz — the sort of drift a tape machine or a slightly different mastering leaves behind. That is a fact about this transfer of the music, not about how it was played.

The dynamic complexity of the recording measures 8.56 dB: that is how far the level wanders from its own average, so a small number means a loud, flat master and a large one means a recording that still breathes. Its average loudness is 0.125 on Essentia's 0-to-1 scale, which is not decibels and is not comparable to a streaming service's number.

10 other recordings here are in B flat minor; the ones listed below are the closest in tempo.

Beats per bar are not in this dataset. AcousticBrainz's analysis reports a tempo, a key and a loudness, and no time signature at all, so this page does not print one — a 4/4 here would be a guess dressed as a measurement.

Keys that fit with B♭ minor

Each of these differs from B♭ minor by at most one accidental, or shares its tonic. That is the whole of what a mixing wheel encodes; here the relations are named instead of numbered.

Delay times at 123 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	1948.1	0.51
Half note	2	974	1.03
Dotted quarter	1.5	730.5	1.37
Quarter note (one beat)	1	487	2.05
Quarter triplet	0.667	324.7	3.08
Dotted eighth	0.75	365.3	2.74
Eighth note	0.5	243.5	4.11
Eighth triplet	0.333	162.3	6.16
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	182.6	5.48
Sixteenth note	0.25	121.8	8.21
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	81.2	12.32
Thirty-second note	0.125	60.9	16.43

Half time 61.6 BPM · double time 246.4 BPM. Every row is one beat (487 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in B flat minor, ordered by how near their tempo is to 123 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in B flat minor All songs at 123 BPM B♭ minor at 120–129 BPM Pink Floyd

MusicBrainz collapses 31 recording ids into this one. Recording id ddaec6b4-6d5a-4fcc-acb1-d325229f07a8.