<p>But if we are in the exposition, then I suppose me must introduce our second theme in the tonic, yes?</p>
<p>There is a joke to be made here with the word ‘tonic’. It’s a thin one. Not a very good one. Not even a joke, really, so much as one of those sychronicities of language that English is so very good at.</p>
<p>In terms of movement disorders, they generally fall into two camps: the inability to move and the inability to stop moving (there is, of course, the inability to control voluntary movements, but reduction is the warp and weft of the world).</p>
<p>And when dealing with seizure disorders, one will often hear seizures described as <em>tonic-clonic</em>. The tonic part is the inability to move. It’s the tension. It’s the holding out of something. It is the tone. It is, in some sense, the order. Order by default, because the opposite is the clonus, the chaos, the tumult of battle. The clonic part of the seizure is the violent shaking. It’s the inability to stop moving. </p>
<p>And so if we have left the first theme in the tonic behind, is it not fitting that we start talking about dystonia? If music was the thing that held me steady, my theme A in the tonic, then perhaps the dominating chaotic force in life was my inability to stay still, my theme B in the dominant.</p>
