We have a society that wants somebody to come out of college with a degree that will make them a slave for whatever discipline they're in.

You try to improvise in a compositional manner. You don't just do some stupid lick you've been practicing, scale form exercises or something.

I'd love to do music for films.

You just chip away until the puzzle is complete.

In the liner notes, music is fine by itself. It doesn't need any explanation.

I don't think I really started to seriously compose until around that time when I was 40.

Sometimes I feel like a one man crusade against the devaluation of music in America and culture in the arts.