Well, within a phrase. And with a series of phrases, you can certainly create the effect of diminuendo and crescendo, no question.

And it totally has transformed my relationship with someone like, say, Bach. You know, Bach is born 330 years ago but, you know, gosh, he really is alive.

I played piano. I've always liked piano. My father played piano. Actually, to be fair, the sound of the harpsichord did annoy him a bit, and I thought, how can I annoy Dad? I'll play the harpsichord.

Well, harpsichord is kind of a big guitar, isn't it? I mean, it is plucked, after all.

Well, within a phrase. And with a series of phrases, you can certainly create the effect of diminuendo and crescendo, no question.

When I say that there's commonality, I mean more in terms of the sort of techniques by which we perceive Baroque and minimalist music rather than the techniques used to compose them. I know that's being sort of overly complicated.

I think in Baroque music, especially in the case of Bach, what really transformed Bach's musical language, what changed it for him was hearing Vivaldi, hearing the sort of manipulation of small cells of information and patterns in order to generate sort of huge blocks of harmony.