Something that I did, and I developed out of that sonic meditations, which were pieces that I composed in the '70s that now are very well-known and used in many classrooms all over the world, but at the time were outrageous.

I became interested in the delay, having sounds recorded and played back and then come back. I did many different configurations of sending signals from one track back to another track, or to the same track, or crisscrossing them and so forth. I worked on masking the delays so when I played into the machine, I would make long tones and collect sounds in such a way that you didn't hear the delay, although sometimes you did.

[Students] they did the sonic meditations, I would observe them in their ensembles, and the ensembles improved incredibly. So I knew I had something to do and something to say.

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

I thought that it would be interesting to have a mirror and grab a light and shine it around in different ways. It's an analog to the acoustic reflections that we're going to be trying to activate as well.

I had to cope with attitudes that were not supportive all along. I mean, you still have that.

I think that this performance with the Thingamajigs is going to be an exploration of the acoustic space and particularly the vertical space, which we don't think about so much.