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Distribution has really changed. You can make a record with a laptop in the morning and have it up on YouTube in the afternoon and be a star overnight. The talent on YouTube is incredible, and it can spread like wildfire. The downside is that it's very hard to convince the younger generation that they should pay for music.

I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos.

I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.

There are wonderful composers and librettists out there. It's the lack of creative producers that is troubling.

When we perform music at TV shows, we always try to do something that's not scripted because anything that's a surprise for the audience and the crew and the other performers, it works better on camera and for the people back home, too.

I think that live shows are more important for singers than composers, because composers still get a lot of recognition as compared to a singer.

The nice thing about doing a weekly record is you're rehearsing all week and working on getting the script better. Come Friday, when it's time to actually film it, you feel like you've done most of the work!

Hopefully it doesn't come as too much of a shock that artists we love watching or listening to for an hour or two aren't always people with whom we otherwise would want to spend 20 minutes.

It's funny because as a composer, you want to hear your songs live on. I think a lot of times people will create a song and it becomes stagnant or something that they're no longer interested in playing, and they leave it alone.

I think musicians should stay off television generally.