With repeated listenings, a piece eventually becomes its own being. I very often say to students that this is like meeting a person for the first tim….

With a piece of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, on first listening I'm referencing it with other pieces by them that I know. I think ….

My perspective on the academic world is very favorable. I did certain kinds of things that I could never have done otherwise..

I was very fortunate to be at a wealthy institution. I do recognize the drawbacks and limitations of the academic world but it's basically the world ….

I can't say that there's a common practice that has to do with pitch language or with the way pieces are put together because today, anything is fair….

I don't think there's something that you have to 'get' with my music. It tends toward the dramatic side rather than the narrative..

I've had a lot of fun writing percussion music. It feels quite similar to writing computer music. But I found myself in the role of choreographer in ….

I think you'll find a significant number of people who decide not to enter competitions because their music just won't fit in that world..

It's very interesting for me to listen to music with my wife. She's not a musician but she very often makes comments about pieces in ways that are si….

I wrote a lot of software to do various kinds of special things, and I loved the idea of composing pieces in an electronic studio..

I came to what I think of as the critical problem: the aging process of a piece of music. I noticed in the '70s that pieces I wrote would sound great….

When you have performers, there's the uniqueness of live performance and what performers do in concerts..

I had been creating music on tape that was to be listened to as a recording, rather than through performance..

I found myself recycling ideas and I saw that I had to invent reasons to compose a piece rather than start from some exciting idea..

If the music has a logic of its own - as I think my music has - an open-minded listener will apprehend and understand..

I didn't want my music to be seen as examples of an electronic culture; I just wanted them to be thought of as pieces of music..

Very often, when you're listening to a piece for the first time, you're listening through a model of other pieces that you know. At a certain point, ….

I don't think of my music as being about something..

I think of myself as experimenting with different ways of structuring pieces. A lot of it has to do with the computer, of course..

I've been really fortunate to have Bridge Records interested in publishing my music for the past 25 years. Most of my music is available in their cat….

There are, however, composers whose music can only be heard in a chromatic sense. George Perle, for example, wrote pieces that you might think of as ….