If I'm feeling confident, then I write confident, happy, or assured music. I can hear some early electronic sketches I did where I'm clearly not confident and everything's a bit mid-range, nothing really pushes through.

Other friends have said, "I don't understand why you've used this trumpet-style sound rather than a real one when you know you can write for trumpet." But it's most important to get the energy right.

I had thought everyone in the electronic world would be so laid back, but there's as many cliques and prejudices as any other world.

I try to listen to stuff that makes me happy for other reasons, rather than being musically inspiring.

I'm less interested in uniqueness than in goodness. I see so many concerts where the program notes are more interesting than the music. I remember talking to one composer who went through the most complicated mathematical algorithm to generate some material from scratch. It took weeks and weeks, and he came up with a C major chord. For me, honesty is more interesting than originality.

It's the balance between wanting the power of electronics and having something real happening - if you want people to engage in what you're doing, I think that's important. I want to have fun with people, but that's hard to do with a laptop.

I want to become less and less about the laptop. That's what's lovely about an orchestra - the physicality, the way every gesture relates to something you're hearing.