I find it so amazing when people tell me that electronic music has no soul. You can't blame the computer. If there's no soul in the music, it's because nobody put it there.

Now that rock is turning 50, it's become classical in itself. It's interesting to see that development.

If you want to make something happen that hasn't happened before , you've got to allow yourself to make a lot of mistakes.

I've written arrangements for choirs and strings in the past, but I usually write music with my voice or a keyboard and then I'll get someone who is good at writing scores to write it out. Or, if I have the luxury of time, I will go in a room and hear the people perform and then change it through what I hear, not on paper. I can read music OK, but I probably rebelled a little - music changes into something else when you read it.

Part of me is probably more conservative than people realise. I like my old string quartets, I don't like music that's trippy for trippy's sake.

I get embarrassed listening to my last CDs. I've got a lot of work to do, let's put it that way.

Solar power, wind power, the way forward is to collaborate with nature - it's the only way we are going to get to the other end of the 21st century.