Tattarrattat

Tattarrattat

My entry for the palindrome game jam is a palindrome itself, of course! I composed it out of pure joy, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. This challenge was so much fun!

Theme

The game I imagine is a JRPG, and this track is for a desert village called Tattarrattat. The music sets the backdrop for exploring this slightly odd new place. The player has just traversed a harsh, dangerous, and scorching desert, finally reaching a much-needed resting place in this unexpected little oasis town. What’s strange is that Tattarrattat seems to look exactly the same, no matter where the player enters or exits. What is going on here? Is this place real, or just a hallucination?

The music invokes curiosity and relaxation but also has an odd, whimsical quality, perfectly matching the strange sense Tattarrattat evokes.

Process

I am currently working on a collection of desert-themed songs, and I already had a soundscape of instruments ready to go. I started creating this track from scratch with a 3/4 time signature. The bassline came first, four bars long. I duplicated and reversed it, then edited until I was happy with the result. It took some trial and error, but I eventually got the hang of it. I repeated this same pattern for all the instruments I wanted to include. In the end I went through the song's arrangement and had to make a bit of adjustments to make it all fit and still make sense musically.  All the notes in the piece should be identical both forwards and backwards (as long as I didn’t make any mistakes!).

The pan flutes and cello share the same musical phrase, but otherwise, each instrument has its own unique melody.

I used Ableton Live 12, and the piece is 1:42 long, in the key of D major, tempo is 88 bpm and the time signature is 3/4.

Feel free to write me for any questions, feedback or if you want to collaborate!