One of the big mysteries of music is, if you take music without words, it means something to us because we know it's about something. It's about something important humanly, but since there are no words, nobody knows what it's about.

England has had a lot of really bad periods of music, but it's had several amazing periods where they've found an incredible balance, not just between music that's a rather complex and also pretty direct. Like the Beatles.

Perhaps 25 to 50 years from now, I can design a piece of music, no so that it appeals to something common in millions of people, but I can design the music so that it's exactly right for you and only you at this particular moment for your particular experience, things that have happened to you over 20 years, to you're particular mental state right now.

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.

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

There were a lot of things happen in the mid-'80's that all of a sudden made it possible to do a lot of very quick interactive music.

I think in many ways, the texture of technology actually diminishes human beings. It doesn't augment them.