I was looking at the different DNA strings and Tourette was the one with the loudest voice. Before I started writing, I tried to visualize a person with some of the symptoms of Tourette’s. One of the characteristics regarding Tourette is the ticks. I wanted to create a feeling in the music, that illustrated that. I decided to set the music in 10/4 instead of the usual 4/4. It’s a 135 beats pr. minute song, which makes it Dance/clubbing tempo. I haven’t tried to dance to it….
I selected the instruments (Pianos, synthesizers, drums and treated guitar) and started to look at the MIDI converted DNA. I had chosen “F” as a “T” replacement. The raw MIDI data was 13 minutes long, and I broke down in bits of 4 bar long blocks. After listening to the blocks, four was selected. That became the basic elements in the song. After some adjustments to the notes length and velocity, I was satisfied.
For kicks, I tried to write TOURETTE in the sequencer (the place you layout what the instruments play). It worked out surprisingly well, but the track was 11 minutes long. I emailed Greg the long version and he suggested, I shortened it a bit. I threw the words, CGAT, TOURT and TICKS at him. He liked Ticks. a little more work was done and the track was down to 7 minutes. Done!
I hope you will enjoy listening to “Ticks (Tourette’s)”.