June 2, 2022
The first day album! Songs are inspired using a table of ideas and a deck of cards, drawn from without replacement. Before I started this, I was worried all my songs would end up being based on ideas I had beforehand, which would be against the spirit of things. This didn't really happen. The only things that I had come up beforehand were the table of ideas, the album's name, and what the cover would look like.
I'm generally happy with these songs, but my arrangements are a little samey. A lot of them don't really grow or change beyond adding / removing tracks.
The 24 hour period the album was made in wasn't contiguous since I had to sleep, which is kind of a bummer. Future Day Albums will likely have to be exercises in pacing myself, maintaining energy, and starting early if I want to avoid this in the future.
The font on the cover is Antelope H by Tom7. The egg on the cover was dinner a couple nights ago.
Draws:
Queen of Hearts (Cross-relations)
Joker (Draw two more cards)
Queen of Diamonds (Swing)
King of Diamonds (Triplets)
LMMS quantized some of the swing notes in a weird way, so I just used the MuseScore export.
Draws:
Seven of Clubs (Clusters)
King of Clubs (Chromatic Mediants)
Used some sampled chords and drum segments from Garageband + my thrift store Casio keyboard. I'm convinced I've heard this chord progression somewhere before.
Draws:
Ace of Clubs (Tritone Substitutions)
Jack of Diamonds (Odd Time Signatures)
This one uses some organ chords recorded from the Casio. While making this song I accidentally discovered how to use my sampler VST's LFO. It gives the organ chords a nice rotary feel.
Draws:
Four of Spades (Trade Between Speakers)
Four of Diamonds (Polyrhythm / Polymeter)
I was pretty annoyed at getting the Four of Spades here, as it meant I had to stop making everything mono.
Draws:
Five of Spades (Sidechain)
Eight of Clubs (Diminished Chords)
More Casio chords. I like the tone of the filter on this one.
Draws:
Ace of Diamonds (Asymmetric Subdivisions)
Four of Hearts (Approach Notes)
Pro Gamer Tip: If you don't like how a song is shaping up, give it a really cool and/or really long title in an attempt to distract people. This never fails.
Draws:
Ten of Diamonds (Metric Modulation)
Two of Diamonds (Abrupt Stop / Start)
This one's definitely an experiment. I wrote a bunch of piano snippets that I thought sounded interestingly mechanical and sequenced them. The different segments are in different time signatures but each take the same amount of time, thus fulfilling the metric modulation requirement. I think this leads to an interesting sound, but it could definitely be executed better.
Draws:
Nine of Hearts (Repeated Ostinatos)
Eight of Spades (Tremolo)
This is the first song written after that sleep break mentioned in the description. This one samples a single note from the Casio rather than a whole chord, which allows me to have more fun with the voicings.
Draws:
Six of Diamonds (Claves / Tresillos)
Three of Hearts (Long Rests)
NITRO SCHOOL is, I assume, where you go to learn to be high-octane and fast. They frown on tardiness there.
Draws:
Jack of Hearts (Stepwise Motion)
Nine of Clubs (Unrecognizable Samples)
Not sure what to say about this one. I took a guitar sample and pitchshifted it into sounding like a bell. The central chord progression doesn't resolve when it loops, which is either cool or sucks.
Draws:
Two of Clubs (Changing Modes)
Two of Hearts (Repeat the Same Note)
Another song where I use the Musescore export. The three chords in this progression each represent different modes: A Lydian, B Phrygian, and C Mixolydian.
Draws:
Five of Hearts (Large Leaps)
Three of Diamonds (Quintuplets)
I don't know how to play Canasta.
The title for this song came first; I tried to write something suitably jaunty for a fun family card game. The off-kilter quintuplet feel of the melody accurately captures what it's like to be taught a game by someone much more skilled in it, I think.
Since this song also uses the Musescore export, this album is kind of an LMMS sandwich.