It is virtually impossible to achieve anything in life without help from others. Reading books and watching YouTube videos are great for learning, but feedback and some sort of teaching and/or mentoring is essential to get you started and keep you progressing. Composing and producing music is no exception. If, like me, you are interested in producing EDM instrumentals, you need to know where to look.

When I started producing my own songs, I found song contests a good place to start. In particular, the UK Songwriting Contest was where I first tentatively entered a couple of the songs. The outcome was encouraging if not outstanding. One of the prizes for entering a song was a free trial of the songwriting teaching facility, SongU. I started my trial and found SongU so useful that I am still a member some fifteen years later.

SongU is based in Nashville and is entirely on-line. It caters for all types of ability and genres but is more suitable if you write country music. At the time, I was writing in various genres; however, when I strayed into EDM, I managed to find a couple of mentors on SongU with expertise in that genre. The one downside of SongU is that many of its pitching opportunities are for country artists, so I had to look elsewhere as well. I came across Songtradr, another on-line facility, which had both EDM pitching opportunities and the ability to release members’ music to on-line stores such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Although pitching opportunities on Songtradr are much reduced these days for some reason, I still use it as a distributor for my music.

About a year ago, I decided that I needed to improve my EDM sounds, so I bought some from an English EDM creator and music producer called Luke Bond. Not only were the sounds excellent, but, by purchasing them, you became a member of his Discord group which included some top EDM DJ’s. I have received some excellent feedback from these guys which has been very helpful.

So far, I have only discussed on-line networking. I was also interested in meeting with some local people who shared my passion. Unfortunately, I live in Clackmannashire and, when I entered “Clackmannanshire electronic dance music” into the Co-Pilot AI system, the first thing that appeared was “Electronic Octagenarian”, which is the title of this series of blogs. There was also a bit on the album I released in 2024 but little else. There is a minor music festival called ‘Tilly in the Park’ held annually in Tillicoutry (about three miles from where I live) and a couple of night clubs in Stirling (five miles away) and Falkirk (15 miles away).

Separately, I came across GLOSS (Glasgow Library of Synthetic Sound) and attended a session there hosted by Lewis Cook, who is one half of the synth group Free Love. It was an interesting experience playing with hardware synthesisers and drum machines; however Glasgow is more than thirty miles from where I live and, as such, is not exactly local. I am still considering whether or not I should become more involved with GLOSS.

Having said all that, I am still on the lookout for networking opportunities. There are plenty of them out there, especially on-line, but it is important to choose the right ones which fit your needs.