"Bad Day" - Daniel Powter - When It Is The Other That has Lost, It Is Easier To Be Graceful - Peyton Manning and the Psychology of Being Out Of Rhythm

Bad Day is a contemporary popular piano ballad by Daniel Powter.
The studio version shown in the numbers that are reflected in the tempo graphs below show that the studio version was recorded with a the aid of an electric device to keep time. While a metronome track, drum machine or "click track" was used in the studio, the live in Vienna version is recorded live - in other words, without the aid of any electronic device. As a true professional, Powter plays and sings with enough skill that he is at ease playing to the relentless beat, and now, most commonly recorded, tempo *or* at ease playing with the tempo which comes to him naturally in performance in front of fans. This skill shows a lot about Powter's future, which is probably bright - like Dave Matthews with Carter Beauford in the Dave Matthews Band and more recently John Mayer and as guitar genius Pat Metheny, has always bee able to do in different forms - playing so well that their playing becomes a friend to the metronome, an ddevelopments in digital music are a platform to learn new ways to express creativity, not stumbling blocks to be overcome. The user manuals, the leaning curve on these new instruments is as complex as it gets - so making the transition is to be most highly admired. Some might think, by false intuition, that playing "in time," meaning, playing in such a way as that the song never deviates by more than one or two beats a minute from a pre-programmed sequence, makes a song stiff - takes the "personality" out. some say. to them, ir does. Different ideas for different people Plenty of musicians have never practiced with a metronome and still have hung on and made money. Not many though. Playing with a click or a metronome is as to playing as rising with two wheels is to bicycle - rough falls, embarrassing training wheels, bu tin the end, a skill once learned and learned forever. Even Tony Bennett and Elton John have long since gone digital. Bruce Sprinsteen went digital and handled it well, while Steve Winwood fell into himelf, by his own admission. Phil Collins rose to stardom by being among the first contemporary musicians to be at ease with live drums *or* a drum machine. It was Phil, after all, that the Roland Company sponsored in 1980 to test their machine - at a time where a drummers were on their own. The difference in the Tony DeFranco/Allman Brothers 1970s and the Phil Collins/U2 1980s was not the societal mood - it was the advent of the drum machine. Some bands like Aerosmith, Pink Floyd and Genesis were able to make the change over to digital recording. Billy Joel made it - as did Paul Simon, Sting, and Joni Mitchell. The last "analogue" is Mick Jagger - the first "digital" star was of course Madonna. By the mid 1990s Alanis Morissette and Steve Lillywhite and Glen Ballard had all mastered the drum machine. Since 1995, everything has been retro. The best bands feature the rare musician as that of a Daniel Powter who can play live or by the click.

The *best* bands can do the 'is it live or is it a drum machine' as the 1970s Memorex television commercial featuring Ella Fitzgerald's voice, and we aare asked "Is it Live, or is it Memorex?" - Memorex was a cassette tape used to be the mobile recording of choice, for those of you under 35. Anyway, there is a breaking of the glass, indicating that the frequency range of the record was all but indistinguishable form the real voice. I age myself with these examples - JFK was president when I was born. Which is kinda cool, because I heard mono, stereo, 33's, 45's, 8-tracks, cassettes, vinyl, plastic, CDs and now m4p's and encoded AACs and even the occasional .wav's. Then again, I've seen 35 years of pro football, a Jets fan every year after they won the championship. Every week. I know my losses! Thanks to the kindness of Chairman Emeritus of Hamilton College, I have seen the Jets win and lose in new ways every week live at the Meadowlands. I go into the stadium at 11:00 A.M. in order to watch warm-ups. Many weeks, as an announcer might tell you, you can watch the energy and synchronous movement and the mood of the team an hour prior to kickoff and *know* who is going to win - pr at least have a 'good day'.

The best football teams can play the way Peyton Manning usually play his 16-19 games per year., warming up, as he did at the Meadowlands in 2006, with *their own sound system* during warm-ups, fans asked, "are the Colts rolling THEIR OWN speakers on to the field? Is this a fraternity stunt? What?" Thus, most days he takes the field, he has full control of himself and the game. Manning can play the a Dungy-scripted pre-scripted "we're going to blow you out of here" games and we saw him last year beat everyone and become a Super Bowl champion of such proportion that one might say, "if Peyton Manning did Not do commercials for it, it must not be worth buying." He was even good on Saturday Night Love and Lenno and Letterman.
re
ALL SAID, Peyton Manning played like he simply woke up on Sunday - and his body told him: Bad day, my friend! Nothing you van do about it. Out of synch! You know it could not have been Manning's mind that let him down on Sunday - it is virtually indisputable that Manning has played in more important games with more pressure to win. I still have egg on my face from my prediction that Manning would repeat as Super Bowl Champion that I never read what he said regarding whether the Colts played poorly, the Colts had a bad plan, the Colts had bad luck - or Peyton had his *one* bad Sunday in 52 in the year! Behind the poor play, what lay beneath Manning's emotions were that day which eluded even his knowledge: if he had known he would not have played with such an out-of-character lack-of-enthusiasm, confidence or poise that is the way I saw it. Diffidence and Peyton Manning are just words one does not use together in the same sentence, but no one is perfect (except in their own musical taste. In that regard, everyone's taste is perfect. (That is why the www.http://www.LetUShowYouTheTastySongsThatWeWillTellYouWhatToLikBasedOn OurFREE EXCLUSIVEONLINEQuiz.com sites are dead and dying). I watched closely: I love football, also, I had an entire dollar riding on the game. I saw a Peyton Manning who "just didn't have it that day," as we say when our motor skills are bad all day, from the moments we spill the coffee in the morning, to the yellow light you keep hitting just soon enough to make the cross section, but just late enough to make such move a danger - and stopping invites rear end collisions. A Catch=22. And all day long - forgot your cell phone, spill *more* coffee after you have just DETERMINED that you will be perfect the rest of the day. Which, of course, just makes things go worse. " Is it any different than "one of those days" where you *almost* feel sick, but you do not cough or even feel weak, and you have no good time last night hangover on which to rationalize what is not quite a headache but not quite a clear head, either. Ever continue as this: - lose balance for no apparent reason, converse without any flow with whomever it is you speak? In short, nothing feels right - we *all* know this as a "bad day," do we not?

Why does a "bad day song" get played at the speed of grace and ceremony, according to meanspeed music theory? Because "Bad Day" *itself* is actually a happy song, it even includes a line that says "[when you are having a bad day should sing a *sad* song to turn it around]." That is to say, The phrase "bad day" as he is using it is a kind of an irony or joke on the listener: *you* might be having a bad day, by *he* clearly is not, and he is offering a 'balm' to one suffering a bad day. So said, safe to say that this song was not playing in the Colts locker room after the game.

Also, when those of you who apply this theory with success know, you can simply hear the wrong thing when you wake and that sensory sense impression stays with you all day. For example, you might be blinded for a moment by a particularly hideous painting on your hotel room wall - but such a sight does not cloud your sight all day. Smell, the strongest memory sense, is not going to affect you all day: "I had a bad day because the eggs she made smelled like onions" is just not something you are going to hear. Not even the sense of touch can mess up a whole day: "Our lovemaking was a disappointment this morning and the feel of it has ruined my day because I cannot get that feeling out of my head. "I cut myself shaving and applying the after-shave really had a sting - I simply had a bad day because I cannot get rid of the feeling of that sting" is something you are more likely to hear in a metal ward than hospital. Yet, when that whatever-it-is-for-you song wakes you up, it gets inside, it plays over and over - so ugly that in science it even earns the ugly title of ear worm (though in my next life I might be a worm and think that they are adorable). I had this experience in the once - I woke up my to a commercial for P.C. Richard and sons, a simple "mi-mi-fa-mi--DO!" (on your basic do-re-mi=fa-so-la-ti scale). Since then I never wake to a "clock RADIO" and I gave up jets season tickets in part because P.C. Richard & Son have a contract with the Jets that the whistling-jingle must be played when *either team gets a first down* at least SIX times during the game. This to me, if I may further explain, is why basketball is not really a sport - it is closer to figure skating in sneakers or modern ballet. I wanted to watch the NBA on Christmas day - James LeBron ad spokesman for Nike athletic equipment, was playing against The Shaq, spokesman for Radio Shack, a company best known for selling out of date electronic merchandise, and coach Pat "The Hair" (referring to Charles' Smith, 1994, and the New York Knicks) *and* the coif Riley mastered and was even imitated by that of a Lenny Wilkins, the most wining coach of all time, so link with Jack Nicholson's sunglasses as a nightly fan) Riley in game 1, Kobe was playing in game two.

Huge disappointment. I had not watched the regular season N.B.A. in a while - I had no clue that like girls figure skating, music amplified by huge arena speakers was encouraged, *especially* when the ball was in play. When a team is allowed to play music during the play of a game, it literally dictates the tempo and turns the game into an athletic art more than a true competition - hence the key role of real cheerleaders, especially in school. I couldn't believe the Justin Timberlake meets Freddie Mercury meets Biggie Smalls mess that I was being subjected to. Unless you were born and raised inside a Nintendo or PlayStation Box, and stayed in that box because you just couldn't get enough canned computerized video game "music," any volume on the television was noise pollution.


Meanspeed Summary
single version
average tempo (meanspeed)=70.0 beats per minute
emotive category according to meanspeed music theory=grace
average beat=0.857 seconds
recording source=iTunes
file type=m4p
Size=3.7 MB
Kind=Protected AAC Audio File
Bite Rate=128 kbps
Sample Rate=44.100 kHz
Volume=(-14.9 dB)
Profile=Low Complexity
Channels=Stereo
FairPlay Version=2
intellectual property=Warner Brothers, 2004, 2005

live in Vienna version
average tempo (meanspeed)=67.9 beats per minute
emotive category according to meanspeed music theory=ceremony
average beat=0.884 seconds
recording source=iTunes
file type=m4p
Size=3.4 MB
Kind=Protected AAC Audio File
Bite Rate=128 kbps
Sample Rate=44.100 kHz
Volume=(-11.6 dB)
Profile=Low Complexity
Channels=Stereo
FairPlay Version=2
intellectual property=Warner Brothers, 2005








































Ian Schneider
meanspeed music
January 16, 2008
significant edits and additions to the original article were contributed by Sophia St. John Newman on January 18, 2008.

(in response to queries about fast songs and emotion, the counteruintuitivity is finally getting some attention and for that I am appreciative. The songs that re *over* the speed of 128 had different pockets of "feel" to them, and I never labeled anything general about such songs other than a hands off 'mixed fast' - as unlike the uncanny confidence with which you can predict a song playing at 116 beats a minute is going to be a haunted foreshadowing of *something inauspicious* and the confidence that a graceful song at 70 beats per minute emoting "my lover loves me and no other" becomes "my lover loves everyone and therefore I am a loser and desperately downtrodden and lonely" when naturally played at 82 beats per minute - the counterintuivity law of medium speed music, written about on this page for years. The songs out of theory range are cataloged and available on request - we feature many such songs on the articles on this page - it is not that grooves at speed ≥ 128 bpm have no emotive quality! Rather, any such patterns in that range will be found by someone else. To be candid: I know more about contemporary songs at "moderate" speed, around the 54-128 bpm that are analyze on the archetpye lists shown in the Graph section of the dropdown screen above. I sincerely hope someone studies that and takes this page seriously. All the "method" you will need is on this page as a 12 step screen above, also - use it! Feedback on article are most wanted and appreciated.)