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" I started classical piano when I was eight, but I wasn't a virtuoso. I just really liked it. "

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" I like mantras and repeating things, like in pop music, where you repeat a line over and over again. It's just so beautiful. "

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" When I was a kid, I had a xylophone, and I thought that was the instrument I wanted to play. I didn't realize it was a toy. "

" I don't know how well I work in traditions. I don't know if it's just the way I listened to music growing up and never having my foot in one particular world, and just wanting to do my own thing. "

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" I don't use the harpsichord because it evokes a past time period: I use it because I like the sound. "

" I listen to the timbre of the music, and I fit my voice to blend with that timbre. "

" The Beatles, even Radiohead, all of my favorite stuff I'd play on the piano. But it was all very secret - for me, for fun. I wasn't going to record myself playing those songs, and it never occurred to me to write a song of my own. "

" In high school, I would secretly play Joni Mitchell songs all the time. That's when I started singing and playing at the same time, and I got really into doing that. "

" I do have a big problem with the idea of music as a form of communication unless it's political - and that's where it's tricky because a lot of music is political, even if it's not overtly so. But my music isn't that; it's about a feeling. "

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" The meaning of the words in my songs are very important to me. But what's most important to me is that the music works. "