I came to what I think of as the critical problem: the aging process of a piece of music. I noticed in the '70s that pieces I wrote would sound great the first time I listened to them and then on repeated hearings they sounded older and older until what seemed exciting and vibrant on first listening became stale.

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.

The experimentation that I do has a lot to do with tunes and pitches and ways that melodies are put together.

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.

My perspective on the academic world is very favorable. I did certain kinds of things that I could never have done otherwise.

If the music has a logic of its own - as I think my music has - an open-minded listener will apprehend and understand.

I was hired for a really excellent academic job early in my life; I was twenty-five when I started at Princeton and I got tenure early on. I really didn't deserve this; I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.