I've always worked at the piano; I like to hear what I'm doing, I like the sound, to hear the actual sound. I get bored just looking at a manuscript.

Anything that we love seems to always come out in some form or another, but once it gets into your brain, these things get processed, and they come out in new shapes and forms.

It never occurred to me that there was anything odd about writing my own music, and so I used to just jot down little ditties and things like that. And it was only in later years I suppose when I was about nine or so, that I realised there was this thing called composing.

I was composing before I realised I was a composer. It came more or less naturally. There were a couple of old ladies lived next door to me, and I frequented their house more than I did my own, because it had all those marvellous things in that that old ladies do have. And they had a piano, and I used to play around with that; they showed me how to read music and I used to play to them.

Music is for people to hear, I can't think of anything else it could be for. Unless you believe in God, and I don't think God really would be all that interested. I'm sure when Bach wrote for the greater glory of God, he really didn't think that God was going to sit down at breakfast and listen to his cantatas. I think he meant for higher purposes than earning a living.

I was composing before I realised I was a composer. I mean it came more or less naturally.

I've always worked at the piano; I like to hear what I'm doing, I like the sound, to hear the actual sound. I get bored just looking at a manuscript.