I heard a lot of different kinds of music. I heard country music, I heard jazz, I heard symphonic music, opera, everything you can think of except very modern music.

My first tape piece was made with that Sears Roebuck recorder. I modified sound using cardboard tubes with a microphone in the end to filter the sound. I had a wooden apple box with a Piezo [contact] mic and little objects that I could amplify on the box. I used the bathtub for reverberation.

My mother brought accordion home. She was going to learn to play it so she could teach it and increase her income. And I got fascinated with it, so she backed off and let me do it.

I try to influence this improvisation in two ways. One is by centering on reflections, in both senses of the word: acoustic reflections as well as visual reflections from a mirror or surface, and then reflecting on the material in a contemplative way. The other influence is listening to the tails of the sounds that you make.

The sound and just the fact that it was different from the piano, yet it still had some familiarity [made my fascinated with accordion].

Everybody improvises their way through every day. And so I do that with music.

All the way from the first thing that I can remember, like our Victrola - a wind-up record player - and my grandfather's crystal radio, and my father's shortwave radio.