David Shire · Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track

Salsation

Salsation is in C minor at 118 beats per minute.

4080120160200

Tempo

118 BPM · Moderatomedian of 135 analyses · 117.7–118 across the middle eight tenths
Key
C minor3 flats · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement
98%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses
135people who ran the extractor
One beat
508.5milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning
441.5Hz · +6 cents from A 440
Dynamics
4.7dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness
0.817Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability
1.239Essentia'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

135 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. All but a handful of them — 98% — put it in C minor, a key signature of 3 flats. The tempo printed above is the median of the 135 readings; 100% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 118 BPM one beat lasts 508.5 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 127.1 ms and a dotted eighth 381.4 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 59 BPM, counted twice as fast 236. A score would mark that Moderato, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 441.5 Hz, which is 6 cents above 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 4.7 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 0.817 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 C 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 C minor

Each of these differs from C 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 118 BPM

Note valueBeatsMillisecondsHertz
Whole note42033.90.49
Half note21016.90.98
Dotted quarter1.5762.71.31
Quarter note (one beat)1508.51.97
Quarter triplet0.6673392.95
Dotted eighth0.75381.42.62
Eighth note0.5254.23.93
Eighth triplet0.333169.55.9
Dotted sixteenth0.375190.75.24
Sixteenth note0.25127.17.87
Sixteenth triplet0.16784.711.8
Thirty-second note0.12563.615.73

Half time 59 BPM · double time 236 BPM. Every row is one beat (508.5 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

Closest in key and tempo

  1. Since I’ve Been Loving YouLed ZeppelinC minor118BPM
  2. DarknessAerosmithC minor117BPM
  3. ToxicitySystem of a DownC minor117BPM
  4. LovesongAdeleC minor117BPM
  5. BabyClean Bandit feat. MARINA & Luis FonsiC minor117BPM
  6. Into the GrooveMadonnaC minor117BPM
  7. Dust Bowl DanceMumford & SonsC minor120BPM
  8. LiquorZZ TopC minor120BPM
  9. It’s My LifeBon JoviC minor120BPM
  10. Young and ProudAce of BaseC minor120BPM

Recordings in C minor, ordered by how near their tempo is to 118 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in C minorAll songs at 118 BPMC minor at 110–119 BPM

MusicBrainz collapses 1 recording id into this one. Recording id cbb69405-15b0-4814-99c7-ec0841b2c70f.