The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

I don't like celebrity programmes - but I do like programmes about how ideas are formed and evolve.

Look closely at the most embarrassing details, and amplify them.

Basically, you're still sitting there using just the muscles of your hand, really. Of one hand, actually. It's another example of the transfer of literacy to making music because the assumption is that everything important is happening in your head; the muscles are there simply to serve the head. But that isn't how traditional players work at all; musicians know that their muscles have a lot of stuff going on as well. They're using their whole body to make music, in fact.

You shoot your arrow and then you paint your bulls eye around it, and therefore you have hit the target dead centre.

I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It's still got the same strings on it.

Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You're glad someone's done it but you don't necessarily want to listen to it.