'I hear music in my dreams, in water pipes, on the seashore, in the grass and trees, in the modulations of human voices, in motor engines, in birdsong and in factories.
I cannot escape it. My mind creates meaningful music out of nothing but random sounds.
Only on a black volcanic desert in Iceland was I able to escape this world of sound. The absolute silence was, in its tranquility, the most perfect piece of music I had ever heard; so peaceful to my ears, so clean and untainted by man, though one of my two companions found it eerie and unnerving.
Music emerges from a chaos of noise in every sense. A record has blemishes- it crackles, or you hear a faint background hiss from the tape. And at concerts the music emerges through the coughs and fidgeting of the audience.'