On Approach


• Music is about discovering things hitherto unheard. 


• By all means be experimental, but let the listener be part of the experiment.


• Compose about obscure things but don’t compose obscurely.


On Description

• You need to set things very thoroughly in time and place unless you have good reasons [not to].

• A sense of place distinguishes a piece of music. It may be a distillation of different places. There must be a very good reason for not describing place.


• You sometimes need to magnify something, describe it amply in a roundabout way. And in the process you discover something.


On Detail 


• Oddities are interesting.


• Songs need details that will anchor themselves in your mind.

On Style 


• Every song taken by itself should mean something.


• Making music should not create the impression that the composer is trying to be ‘poetic’


On Revision

• Don’t revise too much or it turns into patchwork.


• Lots of things resolve themselves just by being in the drawer a while.


• Don’t listen to anyone. Not us, either. It’s fatal.