My work on hyper instruments started with simple instruments, like the piano.

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

I did take composition lessons when I was in high school, so I wrote piano pieces. I wrote some chamber music. I don't think any of that was particularly interesting.

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

One of the things I like most of all is being in my study, in my barn, with absolutely no sound anywhere thinking about something. It's extremely important to me.

I almost never these days sit down with a CD or my laptop and just listen to a piece with a score. I probably would do that while I'm exercising.

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.