I try to schedule the Intensives wherever I go.

There are these sounds that come from outside that work really well if you're listening. If you're not listening, if you're blocking them out, then you don't get it. You don't get the merger of what the players are doing with everything, listening to everything.

The base skill is listening: how I'm listening to the material, how I'm listening to the space. With electronic sound, it's a similar situation of how to produce it and place it so that it works in a space. The first consideration is adopting the space and having work that resonates in the space.

I'm currently very impressed with the level of understanding and of interest in listening that I experience wherever I go. That motivates me to dig deeper into what I've been doing all of this time, to find new ways and also to get over the thought that it's not happening.

I used to go into the studio around midnight and stay all night.

I would play a long tone on my accordion, or I'd sing one, and I would note how it felt - what it did with my mental space. These were meditations that I did.

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.