Half the stuff I've written was written when I was half asleep watching the David Letterman show when some boring actress was on talking about herself. I would just mute the TV, look over to the computer and start plugging in notes. Then the next morning you go "Wow, I like this". I'd almost forget what I did, and then it would inspire me to go on and do the next thing. That's what I do. Just kind of follow my own little thing.

I'm not a haiku artist, but I wanted to use the phrase 5, 7, 5 in the melody that flows over time. So the string melody, the first one is five notes, the next one is seven, and then the third one is five.

I'm pretty proud of everything I've done.

I'm not going to limit myself in ways to compose or how I should record. You just do what you can with what you've got at the moment.

The way we teach is a very linear kind of way.

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.

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