Imagine a cold dark night in central London. Not the razzle dazzle glitzy West End. Instead where the tangle of road and rail muddle their way, out, through to the suburbs. Oh, and it's drizzling as well. That fine damp liquid discouragement which London excels in.

Amidst railway clatter; cat call car alarm; syren scream; a slim, elongate, four storey, room-wide construction silently skirts the main line out of Paddington. Not a train, not a siding, but a college. The college where I met computer music.

Curiously, my only other encounter with this building was a course in food hygiene - a possible business idea. But here and now, I pursue the enterprise that is music. You may think I made the wrong choice - you haven't heard my cooking.

I heard Brian Eno say on the radio that now we have the computer a whole branch of music making is dead "All you have to do is press a button..." I disagree. It isn't like that. Press a button, yes. But which button. How long. How often. And do you keep pressing it at the same time as the record button?

As with food, the sensation, a single sound, can give pleasure - chocolate to the ear. But it needs a context to make the most of it. Given proper encouragement any sound may be elevated above a simple solitary sensation - to impart emotion, joy, pleasure, anger, fear and anything else keeping us from a quiet life.