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Pierre, in godfather mode.

Jed Distler: What about free improvisation?

Pierre Boulez: You can improvise with dissonant chords, or chords which are not related, or parallel chords. That's true. That can be a source of inspiration. Even Beethoven improvised, maybe to excite himself, but he wrote the piece. And that was more important. I don't think you can improvise his Op. 106 [the "Hammerklavier" Sonata]!

.....

JD: How can one learn to compose in the computer age?

PB: First, I think you have to learn by yourself. You learn through analyzing scores. Not because you have read analyses written by other people. That can be an introduction, but in the end you have to learn how to analyze the scores yourself. You have to learn how to be confronted by the scores of other composers. Then you learn how to compose. But that's a very personal, individual task, and nobody can really teach you that.

Taken from this interview and this one at Andante.com. (another part in the same series is here).