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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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When you release a single, you often have to choose one or more genres. This request can come from a variety of sources including your performing rights and performance organisations, your distributor, and the platforms streaming or selling your music. If you are on platforms like Bandcamp and SoundCloud, as well as the standard streaming platforms like Spotify and Amazon Music, this can involve doing this several times.

There are several problems with these lists. For one, they are extensive and involve a great deal of scrolling, which means that your preferred choice is easy to miss. They are also pretty inconsistent. What you choose on one list is often unavailable on the others. There are also many genres that you have never heard of previously, e.g. Antideutsche, Atmospheric Doom, Arunachal Indie. Some of the lists suggest that you choose multiple genres which adds to the confusion. There are also genres that you feel you should avoid such as “Easy Listening”. Surely, your latest release is better than that.

I am old enough to remember when there was classical, pop, rock, folk, country, R&B, gospel, jazz and show music – and little else. Then, subgenres such as ska, glam rock, and disco started to appear before the start of the explosion somewhere around the late seventies and early eighties. This explosion continued through the intervening years until now, when you have to be aware of at least some of the new genres that keep appearing. Electronic music, for example, gave us subgenres such as EDM, which in turn had subgenres such as Trance, which again had subgenres such as Uplifting Trance. I am sure that Uplifting Trance, itself, has many subgenres, although I am not aware of any.

The burning question is how important is your choice of genre on these platforms. I imagine that Spotify wouldn’t put your track anywhere near an EDM playlist if you answered “Easy Listening” as your choice, but how much more it matters is not exactly clear. As such, you might spend two minutes or an entire morning deciding without realising that you should have spent more or less time on it.

Which brings us to the next question. Given that there appears to be a near-infinite number of choices, should you start a genre of your own? It certainly won’t help you answer the question, but it might give you a new-found credibility. Unfortunately, “Other – please specify” is not usually a category.

Oh well, for our new release on this particular platform let’s just choose, say, these three genres, as they are roughly appropriate, and just hope that at least one of them will appear on the list of the next platform.

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First of all, Happy New Year to everyone who reads this.

So what can we expect in the music scene in 2025 and how does this affect my music? According to music pro and author, Bobby Owsinski, successful songs in 2024 were slower than before and contained a high rhyming density with multiple rhymes including internal rhyming, i.e. rhymes within single lines of lyric. AI is taking a foothold in music, as well as in everything else, but is expected to become more regulated in the coming year.

Having read Bobby’s book “The Musician’s Ai Handbook”, I developed my own strategy on the use of AI in music. Firstly, I feel that it’s best to totally avoid AI in areas which involve, or in time will involve, copyright. Examples of this include melody, lyrics and some aspects of performance such as vocals. This is both from a legal and moral viewpoint as you are ripping off the work of other people who may well seek litigation. I also firmly believe that you should stay in total control of your own work using AI only to offer you suggestions. I use a software tool called Scaler 2 to help me create chord sequences, which are not subject to copyright issues, and the Mastering Assistant in Ozone 11 to help me produce a final master of my recording. When I feel that these AI tools produce something I like, I try to investigate why it appears to be working with a view to learning from it. Some song pitches now state that they will not accept tracks involving any use of AI, although I think that in 2025 this is becoming increasingly hard to achieve. Even a singer/songwriter with only an acoustic guitar for accompaniment is probably using a microphone with AI noise reduction.

Of the other trends that Bobby raises, I feel that the song which will probably be my next release, “Jukebox in My Head”, scores highly on rhyming density but, at 120 bpm, cannot be reasonably described as slow – or fast for that matter. Personally, I don’t bother too much with trends, although I believe it’s good to be aware of them. I am more concerned with the fact that Roberta wrote the lyric for this song and, since she has not written any other lyrics, has not joined PRS. I am not sure how that affects any royalty payments but will endeavour to find out.

Lastly, I believe that I have purchased the software upgrades I need to progress, Cubase 14 Pro and Kontakt 8, and look forward to producing much more music in the coming year.