By the visual pattern, but mostly I'm guided entirely by my ear, what I hear.

You write it down because finally, when it's written down you do get it out of your system somewhat.

By the way, the point between rationality and what we would call the irrational is a very difficult point to establish. There’s no specific line, as you know.

There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people that really are not centrally concerned only with music, the traditional things.

I think recordings have been a terrific advance because now, when you have a piece of music, particularly something that appears to the listener very complicated, there's really a push to the world to try to figure out what it was that he was hearing.

In writing music, the structure of each piece is a very important factor.

I'm really interested in writing a piece of music that will move you, that will really move you. That is really the only reason that I'm writing music.