(Makes notes)
What brought me to electronic music? Hmmm, I like all kinds of music, be it jazz, electronic, metal, rock, classical…it depends on the mood. But being a bit of a techhead, I was always intrigued by electronics, and how that created sound, and sounds that were different from acoustic instruments and created specific moods. Went from interest in synth-pop to a party where someone told me I should listen to Autechre’s Amber CD. Total change of sonic landscape, but after a few times I started to really like it.
Ambitions as a musician? Well…none. I just do it for myself.
Influences? Hmmm…not a specific influence. I just listen to several musicians, and some tracks stick and provoke certain emotions, some don’t. Some are boring patterns to me, others have intrinsic constructions in there that I find interesting. It goes from thumping stuff to sparse sonic landscapes.
10 years from now? Hah…I guess still hobbying about when I find time for it.
Where do I find time for this? Not as much as I’d like. I’m just very busy with work, my kids, family, other stuff like fitness and my motorcycle also need a place in the time schedule too. That’s why progress is slow. I’m still learning stuff, not fluent at all at composing, making presets, etc. But as long as I’m still having fun with it and there IS progress that doesn’t matter. To me, it’s just one of my hobbies.
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yeah i am in German gaming industry 
(well now mixed with a new job)
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What brought me to electronic music is the same thing that keeps me away from doing music or other interesting stuff. Television.
Besides ruining my life (using it not to think about me) tv and now more youtube also brings a coulourful and diverese sight on our planet if one watches documentaries, cooking shows, afternon tv and not only news.
M.a.r.r.s, pump up the volume; kraftwerk, the model,
dance 2 trance, power of american natives; young gods, envoye; s-express, technotronic. Such videos.
Ambition would be to make or participate again in some sort of cafe with a bit of music and gear nerding. Similar to this site in real life. And do simple techno, experimental or trance jams.
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I’ve been into electronic music (and more specifically dance music) since I was a young teen, listening to dance shows on BBC Radio 1 and borrowing tapes like Altern-8’s Full on Mask Hysteria from the local library. The Prodigy were my main thing for a few years until I was old enough to go to clubs and got massively obsessed with jungle/d&b. I tried to make D&B in the early 2000s but never really got anywhere with it, partly because I didn’t really have the money to buy equipment (and VST instruments were still in their infancy), partly because I had no training or knowledge (and YouTube tutorials weren’t a thing) and partly because I felt embarrassed about throwing myself into it, because who did I think I was pretending like I’m some kind of musician?
I mostly stopped producing for many years, but returned to it in earnest in 2023, when I realised I had the resources and access to information necessary to do it properly (although less time, of course). In the meantime my tastes had moved more towards house and techno. I accidentally fell into releasing dub techno for a while (I love dub techno but never thought I was making it, until other people told me I was - it turns out the definition of dub techno has changed a lot) but more recently I’m trying to shift towards house music, which is going reasonably well, although I still don’t feel like I’ve found ‘my voice’ (although I’m not sure that I need to).
What I really want to make is deep, stripped back, slow-burn house like Galcher Lustverk, but in practice I don’t have the restraint to keep things minimal and I tend to add too many layers. I actually think all the music gear I now own can be counterproductive in that way, because I’m excited to use it all so I keep adding stuff. Some of my most effective music is purely sample-based music assembled in Koala Sampler on my phone (albeit arranged in Ableton Live), which is a damning indictment of all the fancy music hardware I have at my disposal!
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Amen!
I’m lucky enough to be in a groove where I’m making a lot of music and not interested in gear all that much which is a really happy place.
I got into electronic music in the 90s, but didn’t seriously start writing it until about 2019
Played in bands from 14 to about 38 until 3 kids made it impossible then was at a loose end and lost interest in guitar. Got Korg Gadget on the Switch which set me on a path via lots of other things to making music on Bitwig.
For this year my ambitions are:
- I want to be able to write songs
- I want to be able to write with interesting chords / harmony and understand why I’m making the choices I’m making
- I want to be able to produce stuff that sounds balanced and well mixed
I think I’m somewhat on my way to that goal thanks to Weekly Beats making me write a track a week.
I still want to learn to play keys properly so that’s still on my list .
Formative is metal, classic rock and early house, then Warp, Ninja Tune, Radiohead, more recently Anjuna, Bonobo, Bicep
I think it informs my music by thinking in song structures and being more attuned to ITB production.
Just that I’m still doing it as I’ll be 56 by then.
It’s possble I’ll get back into bands once my kids leave school as that’s what stopped me playing in bands initially.
I don’t sleep much and I don’t really do anything else other than work and look after my kids.
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Like what brought you to electronic music?
A desire to smash together, reassemble, and reformulate many different types of music and sounds that I’m drawn to. Started out as vague notions about sampling, layering and juxtaposition, remixing, etc and grew to include synthesis, generative systems, sound design, and other aspects of sound manipulation.
What are your ambitions as a musician?
To create sounds or “systems of sounds” that move or excite me or surprise me. Sometimes this is conventionally musical (melody and rhythm), but sometimes this is just new soundscapes which can be spoken word, atonal, cacophonous, noisy, etc.
What are your influences, how do they inform your practice?
A pretty eclectic melange – 80’s and early 90’s hip-hop (Run-DMC, Public Enemy, De La Soul); 70s, 80’s and 90’s art rock, synth-pop, and new wave stuff (Velvet Underground, Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Cars, Talking Heads, The Cure, Sonic Youth); west coast punk (Minutemen, Firehose) and post-punk (Husker Du); folk-rock / folk-punk (Joni Mitchell, The Pogues, Violent Femmes); jazz-fusion/funk (Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius) and avant-garde jazz (Coltrane, Mingus, Sun Ra); ambient and minimalist (John Cage, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson), movie soundtracks (Vangelis, Zimmer, Reznor/Ross).
To be honest, I’m not sure how they inform my practice per se, other than the above (and many others) are sounds and associated feelings that live in my head, and when I can approximate those sounds/feelings I’m pleased or intrigued.
Where do you see your music 10 years from now?
The last 5 years I feel like I’ve done a deep dive into synthesis, sound design and sound manipulation, but looking ahead I’m feeling like I want to work on:
a) the musicianship aspects of my playing – i.e. the ability to integrate everything I’ve learned into playing live
b) moving from sonic phrases and sections to whole compositions – I feel like I can create interesting and compelling musical moments, but I often feel like the interesting parts dont fit together into a compelling and novel wholes
How do you find time for music making (if it’s not already your main occupation)?
An hour here and there in the evenings; a few longer sessions on the weekends if I have the energy.
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I like cool interfaces, love UI design and experiencing how designers/developers implement their vision into consumer products. Always loved electronic music, used to bootleg all the ministry of sound stuff when i was a kid. absolutely loved daft punk, justice and other ed banger records acts and wanted to learn how to make stuff like that
was an easy dive into hardware/music production as a result.
had a lot of quick success, played a handful of shows, got placed in a couple of small documentaries, made the national news (CBC) with a clip of me playing some elektrons at the red bull office here in toronto lol
now a days i’m enjoying teaching ableton to students, as well as working on finished compositions, hybridizing my workflow with ableton. having less GAS and just enjoying writing music instead of wanting to buy more stuff
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That’s hilarious, is that video available somewhere?
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What a great track!
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i’ll have to do some digging, it was CBC the national episode aired on september 24th 2014. when i find the screenshot i’ll update this post
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A skate boarding accident brought me to electronic music as I destroyed both of my wrists and wasn’t able to play guitar for several years. A friend bought me an iPad to hospital thinking I’d be able to watch films from it but I started messing with some synths on garage band and when I got out from the hospital I bought the microbrute and dived into modular pretty much immediately. Before the accident I mostly viewed synths quite lame actually.
I want to make music on my own and play more gigs, I just played my first real live set about a month ago and loved it, even though the PA was mono and most of my stuff was meant to be immersive stereoness, oh well.
I’d say my main influences are Coil, Soisong, the basic warp trio and Mika Vainio.
I try not to sound like them and actually there isn’t really any kind of threat of that haha.
It’s more like I like those artists bcs they have their own thing and that’s what I’m aiming for as well.
Hopefully my music would be heard live a lot more in 10 years and I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen.
I have eliminated pretty much every time consuming thing from my life so that I can just try to get in better shape physically and to paint and make music all day every day.
A good thread this. It’s cool to read how you all ended up here. 
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Lyrics hit hard even today
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You know what’s the range of an accordion?
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I’m editing my ambitions part…
I want to pick 3-5 instruments and learn/play them enough that I can improv and play with friends as easily as I did with guitar and drums. I’m hoping for one drum machine, a couple synths, and maybe a sampler. I hope to know them inside out enough to flow instead of look at manuals and tinker.
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Don’t forget a nice mixer. Its the ultimate instrument!
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I started in the punk/hardcore world, started making really bad rap beats as a way to make music by myself, as my interest in synths grew so did my interest in other styles of music. I don’t know what to call what I make now, I’m not super interested in sub genre classifications, but there’s probably one out there I could apply to what I do.
To make stuff I’m proud of is the main ambition. I have some conceptual ideas for projects, but I’m not overly concerned with traditional success metrics. I share stuff I think is good enough to share, hopefully some folks think it’s as cool as I do.
All I really hope is that I keep making it. It would be neat to have enough of a following to do some small run physical releases, but I’m happy to keep putting it out on bandcamp if that never happens.
Music and my visual art are both intrinsically tied to how I manage my mental health these days. I don’t have children which means making the time for creativity is a lot easier for me than other folks my age. I haven’t made as much time this year as other recent years because I’ve been so focused on cycling, but I just finished moving across town into a place by myself where I don’t intend to have internet, so I’m hoping to be a bit more focused as my new place becomes the new normal for me.
This is a cool topic!
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Love it! If you upload it into Bandcamp I will buy it!
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Won a music award for flutaphone in 3rd grade for writing songs. Fell asleep to Casey Kasem; radio under my pillow. My dad had a great turntable and set of speakers. I had my aha moment when I brought home Gary Numan’s Pleasure Principal and he said he didn’t like it: our first musical disagreement. Wore out my DEVO and Ultravox 8 tracks. Played drums in punk, indy and jam bands. Ended up wanting to write solo so I got into elektron stuff to accompany guitar and vocals. Moved to Kunming, China because the music scene was utterly fantastic and open. Xi Jinping and COVID arrived and completely and utterly destroyed the music culture here. So now I’m in a small band but also do electronic/ guitar/ vox stuff. Never stopped playing or writing since the first days I started listening to music. It’s not like it’s a passion. It’s just not an option not to do it.
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