Why electronic music can push your creative buttons

It’s no secret that electronic music has been around for generations, finding its mainstream appeal in dance music. However, as a medium for creation it offers so much more than that. 

I spent much of a misspent youth forging a love for electronic music as a thing to dance to, but as time has moved on (and I’ve got older) I’m seeing it as a thing that can be just be listened to as well. Maybe it’s my age, but the last three electronic acts I’ve been to see have been in theatres, not rave venues, and supported by more traditional, although contemporary, orchestral music. 

The journey [is] as much about experimentation as it is about imagination. 

This mixed line-up attracts people who would not otherwise cross paths with the medium, lifting the elitism of orchestral music and showing that electronically created music is about more than sweaty warehouses in Berlin.

Above: Ovo Energy’s recent campaign, created by 20 Something London, for which Simpson created the composition.

It’s this crossover I am most excited about. Music producers are taking cues from traditional forms and composing electronic movements that follow a similar shape to the symphonies and scores that we know and love but with new, exciting sonic textures, as well as the orchestral elite opening its doors to more electronic arrangements. This further amplifies the fact electronic music can be just a complex as its orchestral counterpart and is, by no means, easy to create.

It isn’t held back by the physical limitations of the instruments or the exceptionally talented people who play them.

From a technical sense it’s the intersection of multiple disciplines within audio and requires a decent knowledge of sound design, production and mixing before any musical skill comes into play.

Creatively, it isn’t held back by the physical limitations of the instruments or the exceptionally talented people who play them. At the start of any piece you start with a truly blank canvas. Not only has none of the music been written yet, but none of the instruments have been made, making the journey as much about experimentation as it is about imagination. 

It truly is an exciting time to be a music maker.

Over the course of my lifetime It’s been interesting see the landscape of electronic music change, moving further out of its dance roots and into spaces previously held by more traditional composition, giving the medium a legitimacy in more traditional musical circles that it hasn’t had before. 

Whichever angle you come from, with all the tools available to us, and all the opinions that are being challenged, it truly is an exciting time to be a music maker.

And, seeing as everyone has a little more time on their hands, here’s my list 10 electronic tracks to get you started.