"Editorial abstract illustration evoking the emotional arc of a song titled "The Swan" by Yo-Yo Ma. Noticeable climb from quiet to loud. balanced composition. Mood: intimate, melancholy. Visual style: 2000s digital editorial aesthetic. Painterly, grainy film texture, muted palette with strategic accent colors. The composition should read left-to-right like a timeline — calm on one side, intensifying toward the other. Strictly no faces, no text, no logos, no literal objects, no band imagery. Pure color-field abstraction with emotional weight. 16:9 editorial format."
The Swan
Yo-Yo Ma
Simply Baroque II (2000)
Easy, low-key calm, gentler than 87% of our 19,209 measured songs — measures out best for focus.
70
BPM
The Swan by Yo-Yo Ma is 70 BPM — Adagio (slow).
Half-time 35 BPM · Double-time 140 BPM · released 2000
Fan image for "The Swan"
An abstract illustration of what this song feels like. Each image is built from a prompt — the text description fed to the image generator. Listeners submit their own prompts, upvote the ones that fit best, and the top-voted prompt drives the next regeneration. After 100 image votes, we make a new picture.
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Song DNA
Notes: Lyrical and expressive cello melody.
Recommended for: anxiety relief emotional release
A calm, low-key track. It has a moderate quiet-to-loud range with nothing abrupt to catch you off guard — a clean track with an all-instrumental build, no vocal to follow at an unhurried mid-tempo. It holds a steady, predictable shape you can sink into. On our 19,209-song scale, it reads gentler than 87% of everything we’ve measured.
Cultural Context
Originally composed by Saint-Saëns.
Listening Prompt
Allow the melodies to take you on a journey.
What to Expect
A smooth, flowing melody that captivates.
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Hear it the way it was made
The right gear changes everything.
Moods: intimate, melancholy
Quiet Track
"The Swan" sits at 70 BPM. Built for stillness.
This is well below typical speech rhythm. The body reads slow tempo as permission to rest. Smooth texture and instrumental keep the foreground spare. Good candidates for use: falling asleep, processing a hard day, slow mornings, study sessions where the music must not pull at you. Avoid for any task that needs alertness — the piece works against it.
How this song sits on each sensory axis
A dynamic range of 6/10 means this song moves. Expect a real volume climb between quiet sections and the loudest part of the arrangement — enough that you may want to set the initial volume below where you'd normally land.
Sudden changes: none. Transitions are musically signaled — nothing will surprise you if you're only half-listening.
Texture: smooth.
Predictability is high — the song telegraphs what it will do next. A sensory-sensitive listener can usually guess where it's going without close attention.
Vocal style: instrumental.
Where this sits in Yo-Yo Ma's catalog
We have 13 songs from Yo-Yo Ma in the library. Of those, 6 are rated Safe, 4 Moderate, and 3 Intense. This song's dynamic range of 6/10 sits below the artist average of 7.0, making it the #9 most dynamic track of theirs in our library.
Other tracks from Simply Baroque II
We have 2 songs from this album. Overall, the album leans safe in sensory profile.
- Czardas — intense DR 8
2000 context
Released in 2000. We have 306 songs from that year in our library, averaging a dynamic range of 6.7/10. This track is quieter / less dynamic than the year average. Explore more from the 2000s.
Explore by mood and tradition
Guides that may help
Jazz for Anxiety Relief: Which Subgenres Help and Which Overwhelm
Jazz for Anxiety Relief: Which Subgenres Help and Which Overwhelm — A guide for sensory-sensitive li…
How fast is "The Swan"?
70 BPM — Slow (downtempo / ballad)
For running
Too slow for most running; good for warm-up walks or cool-down.
For workouts
Warm-up, cool-down, yoga, stretching.
For daily life
Sleep, meditation, reading, focus work.
Browse more songs at 70 BPM.
When "The Swan" works, and when it doesn't
Use-case verdicts computed from the song's tempo, dynamics, and sensory profile.
~
Focus / studying
Maybe — fine for routine work, but the mid-song changes may pull attention during deep focus.
✗
Running / workout
No — 70 BPM is too slow for sustained cardio.
~
Sleep / winding down
Maybe — calm overall, but tempo is a bit high for deep sleep. Better for winding down than falling asleep.
✓
Driving / road trip
Yes — predictable enough for safe driving attention, interesting enough to stay engaged.
✓
Cooking / dinner background
Yes — sits in the background without demanding attention.
✓
Emotional release / catharsis
Yes — this is a song for actively feeling what you came to feel, not for background.
Related reading
Editorial guides that cover this song's use cases, moods, or artist.
Jazz for Anxiety Relief: Which Subgenres Help and Which Overwhelm
Jazz for Anxiety Relief: Which Subgenres Help and Which Overwhelm — A guide for sensory-sensitive listeners on musiciwant.com
Nick Cave's albums ranked by emotional darkness — which one is your nervous system ready for?
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds made some of the most devastating music in rock history. But not all darkness is the same. This guide ranks his …
Acoustic doesn't mean gentle — the quiet songs that wreck you
We treat 'acoustic' as a synonym for safe and soft. But some of the most emotionally intense music ever recorded is one voice and one guitar…
Why this rating
We rate this song Safe because its dynamic range stays within our low-variance band, there are no unsignaled changes, and the texture and vocal style are both in the low-fatigue range. Our methodology uses an AND rule for Safe — a song has to clear every dimension to earn the rating.
This song in the Music Studio
21/100 intensity
See how “The Swan” sits against your own sensitivities, or use it as a waypoint in a calmer set.
Listen on
Spotify and YouTube links go direct to the track when we have the ID; otherwise they search for it. Embed this sensory profile on your site →
Rating last reviewed: 2026-04-05. Reviewed by the Music I Want editorial team against the documented methodology.
Think this rating is wrong? Contact the editor — every message is read and ratings get revised.
By the numbers: how this song compares
Computed from this song’s place among the 19,209 songs we’ve measured.
Where it sits in 19,000 songs
This sits near the calm end of everything we've measured — gentler than 87% of the 19,209 songs in the library. Its intensity reading of 21/100 comes from a dynamic range of 6/10, smooth texture, no sudden shifts, and instrumental. Relatively few songs occupy this exact corner of the spectrum.
What makes it unusual
What stands out most about this song is a slow, unhurried pace: more extreme on that axis than 96% of everything we've measured. At the far opposite end of the library sit the songs built on full chaos — sudden changes, huge quiet-to-loud swings, and relentless energy — the kind of track this one is the counterpoint to.
Feels almost identical to
Meditation from Thaïs — Yo-Yo Ma · 99%Midnight Blue — Kenny Burrell · 99%Autumn Sequence — Charles Lloyd · 99%Blue Bolero — Abdullah Ibrahim · 99%
Closest matches by feel across all 19,209 measured songs — not by genre or artist, by how they actually move.
What it’s good for
Sleep8/10
Focus10/10
Workout1/10
Dinner7/10
Party / hype1/10
Scored from this song’s tempo, intensity, dynamics and texture — not crowd votes.
2000 in context
The 306 songs we’ve measured from 2000 average a dynamic range of 6.7/10. At 6/10, this track is gentler and steadier than its year.
Mixes smoothly with
Within a few BPM and close in feel — they flow without a jarring transition.
The fingerprint
Intensity21
Dynamics56
Tempo17
Surprise0
Density0
Predictability0
Vocal force0
Trigger load0
The 8-dimension measurement behind every rating on this page.
Frequently asked about "The Swan"
Quick answers pulled from the song's sensory analysis.
What is the BPM of "The Swan" by Yo-Yo Ma?
"The Swan" by Yo-Yo Ma has a tempo of 70 BPM (Adagio (slow)). At half-time that is 35 BPM, and at double-time 140 BPM.
What is the sensory intensity of "The Swan" by Yo-Yo Ma?
"The Swan" by Yo-Yo Ma rates as Low-Intensity. Dynamic range 6/10, no sudden changes, smooth texture. Our Low-Intensity rating means no single dimension triggers the higher-intensity thresholds.
How loud is "The Swan" — what is its dynamic range?
"The Swan" has a dynamic range of 6/10. Noticeable climb from quiet sections to loudest point. Set opening volume slightly lower than your preferred peak.
Does "The Swan" have sudden or surprising changes?
No. "The Swan" has no sudden unsignaled changes. Every transition is musically telegraphed.
What is "The Swan" best for?
In our library "The Swan" is recommended for: anxiety relief, emotional release. These tags are assigned only where the song's sensory profile genuinely supports the use case.
When was "The Swan" released?
"The Swan" is from 2000, on the album "Simply Baroque II". It appears in our 2000s catalog.
What is the emotional mood of "The Swan"?
We tag "The Swan" as intimate, melancholy. Moods are tonal descriptors based on how the song reads emotionally — separate from the sensory intensity axes.
What is the vocal style of "The Swan"?
The vocal style is instrumental.
Is "The Swan" good for running?
Not really — at 70 BPM it's below most running cadences. Better for warm-up, cool-down, or walking. Recreational runners typically step at 140-175 BPM.
Is "The Swan" good for studying?
Only partially. The song's dynamic range (6/10) means there will be loud moments that break focus during deep work.
Can I use "The Swan" for sleep?
Not recommended for sleep. Dynamic range is too high — quiet moments will be ambushed by louder ones.
Should I listen to "The Swan"?
If you want gentle, low-arousal music, "The Swan" is a solid pick — Low-Intensity across every sensory dimension.
Songs with the same DNA
smooth texture, similar intensity — across any genre or era.
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Where to next?
You know how this one feels — now go find the next one.