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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.

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It is well documented that, when Paul McCartney started working on the song “Yesterday”, he gave it the title “Scrambled Eggs”. According to some sources, “Yesterday” is most recorded song of all time. Would the same have applied if the song had kept its original title? I doubt it, and I strongly suspect that McCartney meant the original title to be both a working title or placeholder and a bit of a joke. In this and many other cases, the title forms the hook of the song, meaning that the song is easily recognised from its title.

What is the purpose of a song title? In most cases, it gives a first impression of the song and reveals the song’s theme. It needs to be memorable, but also easy to discover, e.g on a playlist, and able to connect with audiences, e.g. by evoking emotion or imagery.

Some song titles are clever plays on words, while others are commonly used phrases. The intention, in both cases, is that the name will stick in the mind of the listener. “Take Five”, a jazz instrumental by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, is named after a common phrase, used by musicians and others, meaning to take a short break from their work. It is also meant to draw attention to the fact that the piece is in the fairly unusual 5/4 time signature. Common phrases such as “Poker Face”, “I Should Be So Lucky” and “Who Do You Think You Are” have all found their way to the top of the charts. Songs, which are based on analogy, sometimes use the analogy to form the title. “From a Jack to a King” and “The Gambler” are songs about love and life, but use the analogy of a card game both in the lyrics and the title. Some titles, such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, “Viva La Vida” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”, don’t even appear in the lyrics. Titles can be made memorable by shocking the listener, some of the Sex Pistols songs being good examples.

Creating titles for instrumentals needs a different focus. Sometimes the title is taken from a film or TV show where it appears, e.g. the Eastenders or Coronation Street themes. Otherwise, the mood of the piece is what usually leads to its title. I have already mentioned one instrumental, “Take Five”, where the title is a play on words but also helps to convey the mood. Titles such as “Side Saddle”, “Apache” and “Albatross” create mental images in the brain, and are appropriate for the music. Other criteria for creating titles include using the rhythm pattern of the instrumental hook to suggest a lyric, e.g. “Wonderful Land”. Indeed, some versions of ‘instrumentals’ such as “Zambesi”, “Mouldy Old Dough” and “One Step Beyond” feature a voice singing only the title of the song. Twenty-first century instrumental hits such as “Levels”, “Sandstorm” and “Animals” tend to have more subtle titles; however, the principle is the same.

Since I mainly write instrumental music, I am influenced by the concepts mentioned in the last paragraph. Some people recommend that you start with the title, but I find that doesn’t work for me. This means that I have to find a title after a fair proportion of the piece has already been written. This can be difficult and sometimes the final title is my second or third attempt. Indeed, I often ask mentors or friends if a certain title is appropriate.

My latest release, “Tempura Mutantur (Changing Times)”, uses the “Take Five” technique of having two meanings – the change in time signature from 6/8 to 4/4 and back, plus the fact that the style of the arrangement is from two very different eras. The piece on which I am currently working has no title as yet, but has the name “Trance 2” as a placeholder. In fact, “Song 2” by Blur was originally a working title! Choosing a better title for “Trance 2” is the number one item on my ‘To Do’ list.

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First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to anyone who reads this. This year has been a busy one, although I managed to avoid the mayhem of releasing a 12-track CD, which I achieved last year.

For the first time, I was able to get two songs through to the Semi-Final stage of the UK Songwriting Contest and am still waiting to hear if either has been selected as a Finalist. The songs, “Classical Trance” and “Trance Mission”, are both entered in the Instrumental category and, as such, are up against opposition from classical, jazz, blues, orchestral and pop instrumentals, among others. For this reason, the Instrumental category is considered to be one of the most difficult to win. Becoming a Finalist is also considered to be very difficult in any category with less than two percent of songs making it through. I wasn’t aware of this in 2020 when “To Andromeda and Beyond” was a Finalist in the EDM category, which sadly doesn’t exist anymore.

“Trance Mission” also gave me my first track which was accepted on Beatport, which claims to be the world’s largest DJ store for electronic dance music, so that aspect of my journey appears to be going in the right direction. I am also in contact with other EDM producers in the Luke Bond group on the social media platform, Discord, where we exchange feedback on each other’s music.

I am currently working on an orchestral track, “Tempora Mutantur (Changing Times)”, which morphs into EDM and back in just over three minutes. The time signature changes from 6/8 to 4/4 and back and this represents a new direction for me. I have received some encouraging feedback for the piece on SongU, so hopefully you will like it when it is released, probably in January.

My aim for 2026 is to carry on with the EDM theme, probably in the Trance genre, but I want to include contributions from my ROLI Seaboard 2 keyboard, with its emphasis on MIDI Polyphonic Expression, and from my Kontakt 8 library, with particular emphasis on sampled orchestral instruments. That combination, which I believe to be unique, should give me something different on which to work. Watch this space.

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One of my early problems when making EDM was the learning process that went with it. You can listen to Avicii, David Guetta, Armin van Buuren, Skrillex, etc., but how exactly do you go about creating the music and the sounds that you associate with them.

I started off by reading the appropriate books. Two books that I would highly recommend are “Dance Music Manual” by Rick Snoman and “The Secrets of Dance Music Production” by Dave Felton et al. The latter features tips and tricks by several authors at “Attack Magazine” which specialises in EDM. If the philosophy behind EDM music is of interest then “The Creative Electronic Music Producer” by Thomas Brett is well worth a read.

There are also many tutorials on producing EDM on YouTube; indeed the Thomas Brett book has a whole chapter on them. These days, most involve some sort of financial commitment. I have used YouTube tutorials extensively but generally to solve problems or find out how to do certain tasks such as side-chaining and resampling. Watching an expert create a masterpiece was something that I eschewed until recently. This was a conscious decision as I wanted to create my own style and not follow anyone elses.

I recently felt tempted to try watching a master at work but was discouraged by the multitude of so-called experts who wanted to make me become an overnight sensation. I was looking for someone who could help me become competent in a genre of my choosing. I narrowed it down to two genres that I found appealing: trance, especially uplifting trance, and chill-out EDM. The latter is somewhat ill-defined in the literature, so trance it was.

Finding an approriate teacher, even in a specified genre, is not easy. As I looked around, the name Luke Bond kept cropping up. Luke had worked with and produced a single with Armin van Buuren and had good reviews as a teacher, so I thought I would give him a try. I downloaded a set of Serum 2 presets which Luke had designed and found them to be excellent. Luke offers two courses, a comprehensive trance course and a shorter course on uplifting trance. I had no wish to be sitting watching YouTube for hours on end, so I settled for the shorter course which I have just finished. I have since purchased a second set of Serum 2 presets from Luke.

The main problem I had with the course is that Luke uses Ableton Live to make his track. This was not unexpected as most EDM producers use Live these days. I have tried but never really managed to get my head around Live, much preferring to stay in my comfort zone with Cubase. One of the things that attracted me to Luke’s course was that he stated that his methods could easily be transferred to other DAWS like Logic, FL Studio and Cubase and, so far, I believe that to be the case.

I didn’t intend this blog to be an advert for Luke’s course but rather to be a record of my journey in finding a suitable course and managing to avoid the pitfalls of not-so-reliable offers that you find on social media. It is not always clear which are scams or even well-intentioned but sub-standard and it is always wise to do a bit of background on the teacher and to make sure that he/she is the person actually delivering the course.

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Well, that’s the visuals done. I’ve just completed the promotional short videos or reels for each of the tracks on the “Aestas” album. While they are called reels on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, they are called shorts on YouTube and canvases on Spotify. I’m not doing much on Twitter/X these days as I am not so keen on it as a promotional tool and all I seem to be getting are tweets from Elon Musk that annoy me. Anyway, the visuals on the other social media platforms took a long time and I feel that the main promotional drive for the album is finished and it is time to move on.

My single release in time for Christmas will be “Rainbow’s End”, a children’s song in complete contrast to the album which was predominantly EDM. It should be on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and the other music platforms by the end of November. Our AV sequence “Rainbow’s End”, which featured the song, won an award in 2018, so we already have a video for the song and creating reels from the video should be relatively easy.

I also need to get back to playing the piano and my MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) keyboard (ROLI Seaboard RISE 2). Playing the MPE keyboard is quite a learning curve but it is great for composing using the associated software (Equator 2). That’s the fun part of all of this and something that I haven’t had time to do while creating and promoting the album. I am really looking forward to getting back to it.

So what does 2025 hold for me. I have three songs which I hope to release: “Jukebox in My Head” (written with Roberta), “Through the Darkness” and “Tempora Mutantur”. I just need to work a bit more to improve the production on these. Also, composing is an unpredictable skill, so who knows what can be achieved when I get back to it.

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Well, it’s two months since the release of my “Aestas” album and the time has flown. I’ve had a two-page spread in the Alloa Advertiser, had a track, “Rebirth of Venus”, played on Forth Valley Radio and been a guest on one of their shows.

One thing that I have discovered in promoting the album is the need for visuals to accompany the music if you want to promote it properly. Spotify want what they call canvases, which are short looping videos (3-8 seconds), to accompany the tracks; Meta (Facebook/Instagram) likes reels, which can be up to 90 seconds; while YouTube is best served with full videos or AVs (audio-visual sequences).

In order to supply the needs of social media, I have gone back to my AV days with PTE (Pictures-To-Exe) and am currently relearning animation with CTA (Crazy Talk Animator). In addition, Roberta’s camera club, Stirling and District Camera Club, for which we once chaired the AV group, have redeveloped an interest in AV and our sequence, “The Iconoclast”, went down very well when shown there last week. This AV uses “Titanium” by David Guetta featuring Sia as the musical background rather than one of my own compositions. For those who are interested, the copyright for using such music in a non-profit making AV is covered by joining and purchasing the appropriate licences from the IAC (Institute of Amateur Cinematographers). We are both members of Leeds AV group which, since it now operates purely using Zoom, has extended its membership well outside Leeds.

I already have several videos to accompany my music on YouTube and a couple of reels on Facebook. Look out in the near future for more of the same plus a few canvases on Spotify.

On the music front, I am slowly getting back into composing and looking at improving and releasing a couple of older songs. “Through the Darkness” and “Rainbow’s End” are already on YouTube and SoundCloud and the latter, being primarily a children’s song, might be suitable for a release just before Christmas. I’m also working on a song called “Jukebox in My Head” for which Roberta wrote the lyrics. Watch this space!