Commodores · Midnight Magic

Sail On

Sail On is in D flat major at 140.5 beats per minute.

Tempo

141 BPM · Allegromedian of 219 analyses · 140.3–142.7 across the middle eight tenths

Key: D♭ major5 flats · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 99%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 219people who ran the extractor
One beat: 427milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 440.5Hz · +2 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 6.02dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.31Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.097Essentia'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

219 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. All but a handful of them — 99% — put it in D flat major, a key signature of 5 flats. The tempo printed above is the median of the 219 readings; 100% of them land within 2% of it, and the middle eight tenths of them run from 140.3 to 142.7 BPM.

At 140.5 BPM one beat lasts 427 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 106.8 ms and a dotted eighth 320.3 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 70.3 BPM, counted twice as fast 281. A score would mark that Allegro, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 440.5 Hz, which is 2 cents above concert A at 440 Hz — close enough to standard that a tuner would not argue. That is a fact about this transfer of the music, not about how it was played.

The dynamic complexity of the recording measures 6.02 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 0.31 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 D flat major; 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 D♭ major

Each of these differs from D♭ major 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 141 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	1708.2	0.59
Half note	2	854.1	1.17
Dotted quarter	1.5	640.6	1.56
Quarter note (one beat)	1	427	2.34
Quarter triplet	0.667	284.7	3.51
Dotted eighth	0.75	320.3	3.12
Eighth note	0.5	213.5	4.68
Eighth triplet	0.333	142.3	7.03
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	160.1	6.24
Sixteenth note	0.25	106.8	9.37
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	71.2	14.05
Thirty-second note	0.125	53.4	18.73

Half time 70.3 BPM · double time 281 BPM. Every row is one beat (427 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in D flat major, ordered by how near their tempo is to 141 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in D flat major All songs at 141 BPM D♭ major at 140–149 BPM Commodores

MusicBrainz collapses 12 recording ids into this one. Recording id c60b387c-6ce0-4810-bd8c-1ed2dd840b55.