I love the cello, I love the physical sense of an instrument that's about the size of your body that vibrates enough that even if you play an open string, you feel it.

I'd studied piano first and switched over to cello when I was about seven. I played mostly chamber and solo classical music. I got really involved with rock music when I was a teenager. I wired up my cello.

I love working with technology because it allows me to follow my imagination and to invent new things.

Why does every society seem to want to make music when it often seems like kind of a frill.

I think part of the bad thing is that skill is emphasized so much that a lot of people, by the time they get to Juilliard, well I think they kind of forget why they got into music in the first place and if they're performers - this is a simplification, but a lot of them are trying to win a competition and play more accurately, or better, or more beautifully, whatever can be measured, than somebody else.

I row for about 40-45 minutes every morning and put in my iPod and it's a huge range. That's when I listen to either things that I just love and know very well and just want to pay attention, it's also where I listen to things that are new that I want to get to know.

One of my interests in music has always been what it means, why it affects us the way it does.