I had great difficulties learning to play initially because I could not think rhythmically properly, although it's an even-paced rhythm, I was not phrasing properly, I was too Western. It took me a while to learn to think in needed form, and the only way I could learn was just by ear.

There's only just so much you can do; I prefer to do only a couple of things and go to some depth in them.

The one thing I never did, I was never strict in my techniques. I might have pretended in the past at times that I did work serially, or something like that, but I never did, it was always I let my ear tell me what to do.

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

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'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.