I have also been recalling the first music I ever heard, a bristling fife-and-drum band from the marine barracks not far from our apartment. This music, and that of the full band which penetrated my nursery every day, and especially the sound of the tubas and the piccolos and drums, was the tickling pleasure of my cradlehood. I know that the wish to imitate this music led to my first efforts at composition, for as soon as I could reach the piano I tried to pick out the intervals I had heard, and in the process found other intervals that I liked better which already made me a composer.