V. There's a lot of speculation about the internet and how that might affect music in the future. Do you have any thoughts about that?

L. I have a few thoughts. The big buzz word is, of course, this random access or interactive performance: writing pieces in which the audience can in some way determine the outcome of the piece, or the order in which things happen, or musical decisions. That might be fun. I find that to be, though, a very low key kind of engagement with music. There's a real privilege a composer has or a performer has when you're up on stage. And I think there's certain expectations created by that setting, where an audience wants to be told something interesting or shown something that's interesting, and that it's a responsibility of the performer and composer to have something interesting to say. That can be an incredibly powerful experience for everyone involved, and I'd hate to see that dismissed -- or at least devalued -- because of what technology makes possible. So, I'm not saying that things are not going to develop along this way where this is a more interactive approach, but it's just not as intense of an involvement with the medium, and I find that it winds up actually diffusing, and you're not as engaged. You're more spaced out, and it's a more mindless kind of involvement, more of a way of killing time than it is like a really important way of changing the way you experience time, which is what can happen in a musical performance. So, I'm not that excited about the technology in this way. I think in terms of sharing information it's terrific.

In that sense, being able to browse a library or documents anywhere in the world, I think that's fantastic, very useful in a pragmatic way. But, I still prefer to read a book than I do to read a computer screen. And I prefer to hear things in a live performance than I do hearing it on a CD. So I think that that experience is very special. And I'm hoping with the way technology is developing, that people will realize just how special that experience is--the only place you can really find it is in a concert hall.

V. Interesting, because on the one hand there's been talk about how the internet--and all the potential developments that it might imply--could radically change the economy of music, and it could change the sociology of music--all kinds of speculation. But what you're saying, and I would tend to agree with you, is that there is something really special about that live concert hall.

L. Yes. Or any live performance setting. It doesn't have to be a proscenium stage, but it's more of the idea that there is a certain privilege that the performer has and that the composer may have in that setting, that I think an audience enjoys. They enjoy being able to hear something very compelling. There's that expectation and hope--whenever you go to a concert, there's that hope you're going to have an experience like that. And that is what stays with you much longer than surfing on the internet or channel surfing on the TV or flicking between tracks on a CD. There's something about it when you're there with a bunch of other people in the audience, if the piece is really good, that kind of concentration and engagement with the piece. There's just nothing like it. It's a palpable experience. There's no other place you're going to get that. And I think I value that more and more as technology proceeds in the direction it is going.

V. Let's talk about Big Band, the orchestra piece. There are a number of things that are interesting to me about it. I've had a look at the score, and because I'm your personal friend, I have a tape--but I also have special, secret information on you which is that you like to do math problems when you're falling asleep at night. When I saw the score, I thought the score looks like the score written by somebody who does math problems for fun. [laughter]

L. Well math is not really the word for it, but there are some number games, and this is something that I've enjoyed doing with my pieces all along--from Relations to Rigor back in 1986-87. I've enjoyed using numbers to control some parts of the piece, usually rhythm, and that's what happens in Big Band. I set up a scaffold--a big rhythmic scaffold that is rather arbitrarily derived from numbers. It's not even that I have a particular expressive intention by wanting to work with numbers or picking numbers to give me a particular expressive result. I like the arbitrary quality of numbers, that there's nothing inherently musical about them--at least the way that I treat them--and I enjoy then the challenge of having numbers shape my musical ideas. That's just fun for me--I guess that would be the word. Because I have my own musical inclinations anyway. This gives me a channel into which to direct those inclinations and winds up surprising me just in terms of how I would do something if I were trying doing it completely intuitively. It comes out, I think, better, or maybe more surprises--more twists and turns--when I try to match that intuition with some kind of constraint imposed by numbers.

V. So the numbers are applied to the rhythm only.

L. In this case, yeah. I just apply them to rhythm. I don't really have much trouble coming up with notes; I feel fine about just winging it in the pitch domain, but I enjoy the more detailed construction of rhythm.

V. So, if you can think back to what you were thinking as you were writing this piece--how did the compositional process come about? Did it start with the grid with the numbers system--or...?

L. No, I start off actually getting some gestural ideas, maybe some little melodic kernels, or a rhythmic pattern that I might want to have my numbers absorb in some way. I work on those two aspects of the piece separately. I think about what I can do with numbers rhythmically on the one hand. And then on the other hand, I'm just out there sniffing around for an interesting melody, a riff, something that catches my musical interest--again, that would engage me intuitively--because without that, without the intuitive engagement, I wouldn't really know what to do with the numbers.

So, that's the thing that I always have to balance--not to let the numbers get the upper hand. It actually brings up some issues, because earlier I was very happy to just let the numbers completely determine the piece in some way. And that would be like Relations to Rigor, where I knew how many measures it was going to be, rhythmic articulation, how that was going to work, and it was that nice feeling of writing a piece and knowing, "Well I'm three-fifths of the way through." I could be very precise about it. I think it gives the piece a particular character--rather obsessive, direct--it knows where it's heading, and it's just moving in that direction, and it's not looking left or right. It just has its sights set and it's not going to digress.

Since that time I've become more interested in trying to figure out how to digress in my music, and yet hang on to some of these formal games, like using numbers to be part of the piece.

Big Band, in some ways, takes a more rigorous approach to rhythm than I had taken in years in the pieces in between Relations to Rigor and Big Band. But the numbers are not so much an end in themselves; they're a means to an end. I use them on much more of a contingent basis. I'll use them in one way for one section of a piece, but then I'll cut them off when I want to go on to something else. So I let my own will and intuition decide, "Well, that's enough."

And I have more specific things that I want to get out of the numbers. That is if I want to build--as in Big Band--several sections are constructed to be long, gradual accumulations, and I find that having that kind of rhythmic scaffolding really helps me plot out how things are going to accumulate, because a lot of the details are decided already with the rhythmic scaffolding. I can then make the bigger decisions about how the orchestration would grow, how the registers would change. That way it just gave me a comfortable cushion that I could sit on, and then leave myself to my intuition to make these bigger decisions on how to shape the big expressive gestures that I wanted to have come through.

V. How much is that typical for your compositional process--or for your compositional process recently? How typical is it that you decide to have one thing very organized and other things you allow yourself to be intuitive with?

L. Oh boy. Typical. Hmm. I would say I go back and forth. I think there were several pieces in which I did not use numbers at all. I might have some. I think every composer has something on their mind in terms of how to make the piece hang together.

V. What pieces?

L. Oh, for instance January Music would be one where there isn't anything going on with numbers, but I had a gestural idea that I was trying to have always present in the piece--always present in the music, but reinterpreting it as it went along so that it would have so many very different expressive guises. But Big Band marks more of a return to using numbers in a more detailed way. The pieces I'm working on now don't use numbers, but I have other things that take their place. Even if it's not strictly derived from a numerical procedure. So, it's something I'm interested in: reconciling myself with some kind of arbitrary or rigorous constraint and then seeing how that affects the intuitive ideas that I would have anyway.

V. I've always thought listening to your music that there's a finely tuned balance between control and passion--there's passion just waiting to get out--It's ready to burst, but controlled just enough. That's something quite attractive to me.

L. That's one of those comments that I don't really know how to deal with, because it's not like I'm sitting there saying , "Well, I have all this passion, but I'm just going to let these numbers keep the lid on it in some way." It's much more. I mean it works both ways. I think in some ways, the numbers can actually provoke more extravagant, expressive gestures, that I think are more three-dimensional and more finely gradated in a way. There's more texture to them because of the numbers than there would be if I were just doing it intuitively. My guess is that I might paint those gestures with a broader brush, and they might not have as much inner life. And that's what I find exciting about the numbers--that I will imagine things, like I say, using the broad brush, the visceral impulse, the passion, whatever word you want to use for it. But if I can find a way to have the numbers in there as well, it gives those impulses more texture, and I think makes them more persuasive. At least that's what I hope. And I think in the pieces that really work--with the numbers--that can be the case. It will make it more passionate rather than something that is toning things down or keeping them under control.