Our individual consciousness is actually part of a larger system. There are many levels of consciousness, and the creativity used in composing the music comes from another level that is not purely personal.

In a way, composing on the melodic level is an expression of a melodic truth, almost like a geometric truth. If it has clarity, other people will recognize it. There's no way of isolating it in a gallery on a white wall and saying, "This is a work of art. This is a mathematical proof."

Learning how to listen to others and how to listen to your own thoughts is the ultimate process.

Even if you're a genius and you invent your own language, it doesn't become a language until there are people using it.

Listening is active. It's like vision. It's like the idea of the eye projecting light, which I've heard is what children and infants say when they're asked to explain vision - that the eye projects light, rather than just receives it.

Musicians always want to sacrifice our creativity to get involved in environmental issues or political activism of some sort - to reduce it to something more populist in terms of sing-alongs or guitar songs with a message.

There is no guiding principle, because the work that is created in collaborations should be created from its own principles.