I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time.

When I began competing with the other artists in New York, I discovered classical North Indian music.

I began composing works which were imitative of the music I was being told about. I was also very interested in translating the music into visual terms.

Basically, at this time, I viewed any work of art as an imposition of another person's taste and saw the individual making this imposition as a kind of dictator.

At the same time, I was listening to black music, and I began to think that the best musicians were receiving the worst treatment. The people who were doing the greatest work were despised as lower class, with no dignity accorded to what they did.

I began demonstrating against serious culture. In hindsight, the actual course of events has been very humiliating for me, because no one picked up on the intellectual critique I made.

I was a student at Harvard, and that's where I learned about so-called avant-garde music. Jackson Pollock, abstract expressionism and painting were well known at this time.