What's up in the world of Aquaboogie? Well, as well as playing several Malty Media gigs, I've come up with numerous new tracks. It's been a fertile time, in which even as a new idea becomes untenable, ten minutes later a better one will come along. Or, I'll pick up an unfinished idea and find a way to work it into something usable.

I find I'm more productive in the spring and summer months. In winter I'm rubbish. I don't know if creativity and vitamin D go hand in hand, but the ideas seem flow better when the sun's out.

What else? I've also pondered the difference between professional electronic musos and bedroom boffins like myself. I give this a lot of thought because I feel (out of a sense of inadequacy) that I must prove myself as a real muso rather than a dilettante tinkerer. When I was younger I perceived the metric for this as getting picked up by a label (any one). I never got there (except in the sense that I created my own label, which is in one sense a copout, but in another more fun), and now that the music market has collapsed there's not much likelihood I'm heading for the bigger time.

For me now it's more about 'being there', and meeting a certain threshold for muso viability. Threshold? Well obviously you have to have a certain artistic and technical ability (ie, your material isn't shit), but you also have to have a certain level of commitment. A couple of years ago I went to a kind of workshop for bedroom boffins and about a dozen people were in attendance. At first I was aghast: there was apparently a scene I didn't know about! Then, as people talked about themselves it became apparent that they were all interested in producing electronic music, and some (though probably a minority) actually had invested in equipment and (a smaller minority again) knew how to use it, but no one (even myself, at the time) was actively writing and performing music.

Now it's nice to have people who are interested, and it's certainly good to encourage them, but for them to be proper musos, I believe, they need to have a set they can play at short notice, and they need to be able to produce a decent demo track from scratch within three weeks to meet a deadline. Otherwise, they're either an ex-muso or a dilettante.

Commitment is the key.

As for professionals, well, good luck to them in the current environment! Are there any left? And is the difference between a committed amateur and only to do with talent? I'm prepared to posit that in many cases (at least from observing the local scene), the only real difference is better networking skills, greater commitment, and the ability to neatly meet (and never confound!) the expectations of your niche market.

I'm happy to stay an amateur.