It's one thing to write the music, it's another thing to write it down, it's another thing to play it, and something else altogether again to learn how to play it. These are the elements that are fascinating, and, you know, move my world.

Frank [Zappa] said he probably would have been a major criminal, given his brain power and his attention to detail, had he not been a composer. But being a composer is not something you can't help.

Musicians more than most people are in the moment. That's the dual nature of that job.

Certainly Apple has improved enormously. At the beginning, the sampling rate was an issue for me, but a bigger argument was over digital rights, which I had.

I think it's okay that there's digital music out there, because that does mean more people have access. I mean, you're a student, and you're studying music, and you want to find a CD of a whole work, but there's one piece that intrigues you. It's easy to get that piece for a dollar for the most part. And it's so easy for people to carry around music digitally.

The problem with composers is that they are the most unrequired job in America.

When I put out the records, when I make a distribution deal, those distributors tell me who they sell it to and how many copies. So I want nothing less.