By Olivia Cesarini

Electronic Dance Music (EDM) may just be the next big thing in the music industry. EDM has recently achieved international popularity and has risen to the forefront of mainstream tastes through well-known DJs and artists such as Skrillex and David Guetta. Bellarmine junior Taylor Flaherty has fully embraced this emerging musical genre, and has developed his own hobby of composing and remixing his own EDM creations.
“EDM is electronic dance music that is usually composed on a computer,” said Flaherty of his hobby. “It’s all built on online sounds and there are usually no live instruments or vocals involved.”
Flaherty is a self-taught artist and has been developing his skill for six years. “Actually, [playing] video games got me into electronic music in the first place. It’s constantly playing during games and after hearing it so often I decided it was something I wanted to try for myself.
EDM is a way for Flaherty to express himself through his love of music. It allows him to be creative and productive by creating something through his passion.
“I originally started generating my music by just doing some research on the subject when I decided it was something I was interested in,” said Flaherty. “I found and messed around on a few online programs and just learned all I could about them until I felt comfortable using them. Once I had an idea of how everything worked I started to try to make some of my own sounds. For me, EDM is a creative outlet. I’ve been making electronic music for years now, and it’s been great.”
When not working on his own music, Flaherty continues to learn from the work of others. Flaherty is influenced by many famous EDM artists, such as his favorites, Showtek and RL Grime. Unlike these artists though, Flaherty is not interested in turning his hobby into a fulltime career.
“Right now I consider EDM just a hobby,” said Flaherty. “I do strive to make professional-sounding music that
I could possibly market in the future, but even that would be a side job. It’s not something I’m interested in pursuing more than that. For me, making electronic dance music is mostly just a way for me to be creative with something I am passionate about, and make something real.”
All of this information on electronic dance music begs the question, what goes into creating it? “I usually spend a couple hours a week working on my EDM,” say Flaherty, “but sometimes I will have sessions where I go for six hours at a time just to complete one whole song.”
When asked about the most difficult part of his hobby, Flaherty admitted to sometimes experiencing writer’s block. “It is just like it is with anything creative. Sometimes you just can’t think of what you want to do next and you kind of have to step back and think and try a little bit of everything before you figure out what is best.”
It is no doubt that Flaherty is a very passionate and inventive person. EDM allows him to learn and create and in the end be left with a finished product. “It’s really amazing, the things you can do with programs on your computer, I mean, you can manipulate sounds to do anything you want,” said Flaherty. “Once you know the basics of making EDM, there is so much potential before you. It really frees your creativity and that’s what keeps me coming back to it.”
Both the process and the result of generating his own music are rewarding for Flaherty. “The feeing once you finish a song is amazing,” said Flaherty, “you can just step back look at the finished product, see everything you just created on your own. It’s something you can really be proud of.”
Flaherty has recently created a soundcloud account on which he uploads both the songs of other artists that he has remixed as well as his original music. For anyone interested in hearing some of Taylor’s remixes as well as original tracks, you can find his work on soundcloud under the artist name rhythm_gmz.