Introduction
This written commentary aims to document my learning experience during this project and detail the ideas I took onboard and incorporated into its creation. The performance with electronics module and my 1-1 tuition at the conservatoire both served as spaces to explore an approach to making music which was new to me and has reshaped my perception of electronic music.
Completely up ending many of the pre-conceptions I had about writing music with a guitar has been an incredibly satisfying journey, made all the more enjoyable by having a musical output to show for it, in the form of this project. This project has made me reconsider parts of my musical identity and this commentary will go on to detail the changes I’m looking to make going forward in my musical journey.
Prior Experience with Electronics in Music
My experience with incorporating effects and electronics into my own music prior to this academic year’s lectures, I would come to learn, was somewhat limited. Having spent the majority of my time playing rock and pop music on the electric guitar, my effects knowledge included the use of equalisation, delay, reverb and simple modulation such as chorus and phaser which I utilised to replicate sounds from popular releases. Taking inspiration from guitarists such as John Frusciante and David Gilmour, both of which were some of the first examples I’d heard of guitars with modulation effects, meant I recognised the sounds of modulation but hadn’t varied too much from their uses of the effects. As a result of these influences not being too far a departure from orthodox methods, almost every sound I sought with effects was still very much identifiably a guitar being played in a conventional manner.
Outside of playing music, my listening had also exposed me to various techniques such as sampling, the use of pads, synthesisers and vocal processing. Naturally the pieces of music I recognised as sampling were those that sampled rock and pop songs that I was familiar with, with “Livin’ it up” by Limp Bizkit being one of my earliest memories of encountering the technique, where the band sample “Life in The Fast Lane” by The Eagles. I encountered the use of pads throughout Lenny Ibizarre’s discography which featured heavily in the Gran Turismo Sport soundtrack and inspired many of the sounds I experimented with over the course of this project. Tracks such as “The Lady Smiles” by De-Phazz (De-Phazz, 1999) and “Lizzie’s Balloon” by 45 Dip (45 Dip, 2000) also featured in the game’s soundtrack and serve as a large portion of my past exposure to music outside the space of the typical rock band arrangement prior to this academic year.
As my appreciation for electronic music changed with each lecture, as did my listening habits. In the months following the first Performance with Electronics lecture I became interested in online communities sharing niche electronic music under the aesthetic umbrellas of “Frutiger Aero” and “Mall-core” (See bibliography for representative playlist) as well as downtempo music often categorised as trip hop. The focus on liminal space in these genres as well as the blending of orthodox and unorthodox instrumentation appealed to me and influenced creative decisions within this project.
“A group of media researchers discussed Frutiger Aero as part of a larger trend of fascination with outdated futures” (Wikipedia, n.d.)
My Experience This Academic Year
It is during this academic year that I began using Ableton as my primary DAW software. This switch to an unfamiliar piece of software, paired with the choice to have this project be comprised of songwriting processes and sounds I hadn’t explored before have made what was becoming a stale practice regiment exciting again. The influence of this hard reset on how much I enjoy practicing and writing music has been overwhelmingly positive and I’m now able to appreciate and create a style of music that I struggled to before this switch.
Attending the lectures throughout this academic year showed me the techniques and pieces of equipment used to achieve many of the sounds I found interesting in music outside my typical wheelhouse. While I had encountered looped music before, the history of tape loops provided insight into how such an effect was achieved prior to the invention of digital solutions and gave me an appreciation for the layered soundscape that looped music allows a single performer to achieve. This inspiration was taken into this project and used to create such a soundscape. Such an approach encouraged simplicity and a “less-is-more” mentality to composing parts as to not have the resulting sound be, what i considered, too crowded. The example set by many performers in the looped music space sees musicians use traditionally melodic instruments as rhythmic devices, an idea that I also sought to use in this project.
The looping function in my multi-effects unit used in combination with sampling my own performances in Ableton enabled me to practice emulating this method of music production and later incorporate it into this project. Having passages and phrases be looped in real-time influenced the choices I made as a guitarist. Accompanying my own playing put my performance under more pressure and forced me to improvise in some cases, resulting in quite different outcomes to what might’ve been played had I chosen to sample or overdub the same piece of music later.
The use of envelope filters and LFOs showcased during the lectures exposed me to new ways of thinking about modulation. Building on my prior experience with chorus and phaser in a guitar context, seeing these alternate methods of modulation applied to synthesisers inspired me to chase a similar sound on my instrument. With my experience with keyboards being very limited, attempting to replicate these sounds with a guitar set me on my own journey in utilising new effects while steering me towards sounds I was unlikely to have explored otherwise.
In my efforts to replicate the sounds of synthesisers I encountered a problem with using the guitar to do so. The smooth, gradual builds of the synth swells I wished to emulate were difficult to produce due to the sound of my pick attack accompanying each note or chord. While playing fingerstyle did help somewhat, a solution using a slow-gear effect in my multi-effects unit proved to be the most effective method of replicating the sounds I was chasing throughout this project. This, as well as the freeze function in my multi-effects unit paired with the use of equalisation, a low-pass filter and reverb plugins in Ableton served as the method behind creating the synth-esque drones featured in the project.
Another series of effects I had encountered before were reverb and delay. With both effects being widely used on guitar to broaden the sound and increase sustain, what struck me about the approach to both in much of the electronic music I found myself enjoying was just how integral it was to creating said tracks. Long-tail reverbs similar to those used by Lenny Ibizarre to form soundscapes simply weren’t possible to reproduce using the analogue spring-reverb units found in most guitar amplifiers. When I came to experiment with the reverb plugins in Ableton, it became clear just how influential they would prove to be in the process of writing music for this project. The sustain and sense of space offered by some of Ableton’s reverb plugins when used with a guitar proved very inspirational and influenced my songwriting whenever used.
The use of dotted delay as a rhythmic device to turn simple phrases into more complex patterns was another sound I gravitated towards. Operating as essentially a self-contained looper, the delay block in the ME90 was used for motifs I wanted to punctuate sections of the track with, gradually decaying and without having them loop throughout. As well as dotted delay, using the delay block with a very short delay time and zero feedback was used to effectively double track improvised sections of my playing.
Changing Attitudes Towards Effects
It was during my 1-1 sessions at the conservatoire that I began exploring the more unorthodox sounds that my Boss ME90 effects unit was capable of producing. While I was already exploring replicating synth pads and soundscapes, some of the more sporadic sounds I utilised during the project were found to be possible during these sessions. These sounds were achieved by making use of fuzz, reverse delays and manipulating both the expression pedal and tactile controls on the ME90.
Upon reaching a greater level of familiarity with the ME90, some of its limitations began to become a part of the creative process. With its pitch-shifting effects struggling with polyphony, the sound of the unit struggling to choose a single note to effect is itself an interesting sound which I found myself manipulating. Having the pitch-shifting alternate between the notes within a chord resulted in what was essentially a randomised arpeggiator.
Stacking different effects and manipulating their parameters to extremes were things that I may have been sceptical or even apprehensive about trying before this year and I am glad to have the confidence to do so today. The excitement of throwing several, seemingly contradictory effects together and manipulating them to form new sounds has now become a regular part of my practice routine.
Moving Forward
Many of the techniques I have honed over the course of this project are practices that I wish to continue developing and utilising in my creative process. My exposure to new electronic music this year has made me strive to blur the lines between these processes and those that I was already familiar with. I hope that the continuation of these efforts will be fruitful, as they already have, in changing how I interact with my instrument, write music and listen to music.
One of the biggest changes in my workflow has been a move away from riff-based writing, such as in the rock and pop space I was familiar with, choosing instead to use the electric guitar as a means to create an ambient soundscape. Where in the past I might’ve chased catchy, snappy licks or ideas to accommodate vocalists, I find this new approach sees ideas flow more naturally and become complete musical statements that can stand on their own almost immediately upon conception.
My experiences during this project and the lectures saw me return to listening to electronic music I had grown up around, predominantly in videogames. The earlier mentioned “Frutiger Aero” aesthetic seeks to capture the nostalgia surrounding early 2000s computer culture and, given my age, I have fond childhood memories of this aesthetic in both visual and auditory forms. One of the most often referenced works of music that fits this aesthetic is the Nintendo Wii’s UI soundtrack. (Nintendo, 2006). Listening to this music after acquiring insight into the process of writing and recording electronic music was what initially brought me to seek out music similar in style. The downtempo dub music that I went on to discover down this rabbit-hole served as much of the inspiration for this project.
In the future I plan to explore Ableton’s drum machines, adding another rhythmic element to my songwriting toolbox will provide me with more creative freedom and the knowledge and experience acquired over the course of this project is likely to further shape my creative practice and how I express myself musically.
Conclusion
With the main transformation in my practice being my changed relationship with the electric guitar, DAWs and effects, all of these components are now becoming larger parts of my musical identity. A newfound confidence in effects experimentation and the use of Ableton’s plugins as instruments in themselves have been two seismic shifts in my approach to playing music which were spurred on by undertaking this project. I plan on writing more music in the style of this project and look forward to the surprises offered by this newfound approach to using my equipment, as well as the discovery of music I can now find a newfound appreciation for.
This shift has resulted in a less outcome-focused workflow, allowing me to enjoy the process of experimentation and doing away with any of the preconceptions that made my past efforts in writing music dull to my own ear. In a sense, my practice has begun to align more closely with contemporary methods of music production as opposed to legacy, rock band oriented arrangements, emphasising a sound-design approach instead.
Moving forward, I intend to further blend my experience with performance with the fresh approach to production that this project has brought to my music and wish to continue challenging my assumptions about how the electric guitar can function within a composition.
Bibliography
Kentaro Kiuchi (26/06/2022) Blood Sugar Sex Magik Chorus Sound. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CGS-7f_nbE Accessed 3 May 2026.
Gilmourish (23/02/2025) David Gilmour’s phaser tones with the MXR PHASE 90!. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GKZpwsc-MQ&t=271s Accessed 3 May 2026.
Limp Bizkit (2000) Livin’ It Up. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/track/0QepvU0N2fC2B5uIPafO1q?si=2171c220533a44a9 Accessed: 1 May 2026.
Eagles (1976) Life in the Fast Lane. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/track/6gXrEUzibufX9xYPk3HD5p?si=b171c8110a494460
Accessed: 1 May 2026.
Lenny Ibizarre (n.d.) Spotify artist page. Available at: “https://open.spotify.com/artist/46EFdhRhsYOdmx63ffjOtu?si=LkL9U8f9SAS495-LHC0vMg” Accessed: 1 May 2026.
De-Phazz (n.d.) The Lady Smiles. Available at: “https://open.spotify.com/track/4GztrgFNpBIpNKQOZwDKpt?si=a5bd116b83fb4303” Accessed: 1 May 2026.
45 Dip (1999) Lizzie’s Balloon. Available at: “https://open.spotify.com/track/0NVckyST95ymWwBEtHH0xI?si=ee466db9f53a48d6” Accessed: 1 May 2026.
Nintendo (2006) Nintendo Wii soundtrack. Available at: “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDH0ArZRGLk&list=PLIAnXu_nmPVCmT2GTm23SSM76dUu1_0Op” Accessed: 2 May 2026.
Mallsoft & Shopping Mall Ambience (n.d.) Available at:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4im2nSUjjCdReLLDNwDQoC?si=682a1f5e459a4421 Accessed: 2 May 2026
Wikipedia (n.d.) Frutiger Aero. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frutiger_Aero Accessed 2 May 2026
