Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers · Into the Great Wide Open

Learning to Fly

Learning to Fly is in C major at 116.8 beats per minute.

Tempo

117 BPM · Moderatomedian of 215 analyses · 116.7–117.5 across the middle eight tenths

Key: C majorno sharps and no flats · the key most of the analyses agreed on
Agreement: 90%share of analyses that agreed
Analyses: 215people who ran the extractor
One beat: 513.7milliseconds, 60,000 ÷ BPM
Tuning: 440.3Hz · +1 cents from A 440
Dynamics: 3.74dB the level wanders from its average
Loudness: 0.908Essentia's 0–1 scale, not dB
Danceability: 1.084Essentia'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

215 independent analyses of this recording were submitted to AcousticBrainz. Most of them — 90% — put it in C major, a key signature of no sharps and no flats. The tempo printed above is the median of the 215 readings; 93% of them land within 2% of it, and they barely differ at all.

At 116.8 BPM one beat lasts 513.7 milliseconds, so a sixteenth note is 128.4 ms and a dotted eighth 385.3 ms — the delay times for this recording. Counted half as fast it is 58.4 BPM, counted twice as fast 233.6. A score would mark that Moderato, by the ranges this site uses.

The analyses put the reference pitch of the recording at 440.3 Hz, which is 1 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 3.74 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 0.908 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 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 C major

Each of these differs from C 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 117 BPM

Note value	Beats	Milliseconds	Hertz
Whole note	4	2054.8	0.49
Half note	2	1027.4	0.97
Dotted quarter	1.5	770.5	1.3
Quarter note (one beat)	1	513.7	1.95
Quarter triplet	0.667	342.5	2.92
Dotted eighth	0.75	385.3	2.6
Eighth note	0.5	256.8	3.89
Eighth triplet	0.333	171.2	5.84
Dotted sixteenth	0.375	192.6	5.19
Sixteenth note	0.25	128.4	7.79
Sixteenth triplet	0.167	85.6	11.68
Thirty-second note	0.125	64.2	15.57

Half time 58.4 BPM · double time 233.6 BPM. Every row is one beat (513.7 ms) times the fraction in the second column.

The same title by somebody else

Learning to FlyPink FloydC major166BPM

Matched on the title alone, so this list can hold a different song that happens to share a name. Nothing here claims one is a cover of the other.

Closest in key and tempo

Recordings in C major, ordered by how near their tempo is to 117 BPM. A calculation, not a recommendation.

All songs in C major All songs at 117 BPM C major at 110–119 BPM Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

MusicBrainz collapses 26 recording ids into this one. Recording id 8c7ce461-5559-4586-a932-bc0fcbba0dde.