It was around the end of the '60s, when I began to compose sonic meditations. Before that I was doing a lot of reflecting on myself, and listening to long tones.

I think the worst thing is stereotyping.

[My interest in music] is from my mother and my grandmother, who were pianists, and they taught.

Before that, an 8-bit recording was pixelated; it was really bad. It didn't serve what I was doing, which was recording live sound and delaying it and feeding it back. This is essentially what the EIS system is: a bunch of delays.

You run into stereotypes so that the stereotype filters who you are and what you do, and having to deal with that was the most frustrating thing for me.

I wrote my sonic meditations and started using them with students. I took a bunch of UCSD students out to Joshua Tree and we did the sonic meditations on the boulders.

My writing has always been a rather non-linear process. I've found if I get something down, I can listen to it and other things start to come.