With repeated listenings, a piece eventually becomes its own being. I very often say to students that this is like meeting a person for the first time. When you first meet someone, you reference that person with others who are similar; but, as you get to know that person better, you begin to understand his unique qualities.

When you have performers, there's the uniqueness of live performance and what performers do in concerts.

I think you'll find a significant number of people who decide not to enter competitions because their music just won't fit in that world.

I didn't want my music to be seen as examples of an electronic culture; I just wanted them to be thought of as pieces of music.

I had been creating music on tape that was to be listened to as a recording, rather than through performance.

Very often, when you're listening to a piece for the first time, you're listening through a model of other pieces that you know. At a certain point, a piece becomes idiosyncratic and you start to understand it on its own terms.

I noticed things in my computer music that were getting old, and I started to figure out that this has to do with the way the listener interacts with music.