 He was writing music by the age of eleven and went on to study composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti at Darmstadt in Germany before taking a master's degree in music at King's College, Cambridge.While at Cambridge he joined an electronic music group, Intermodulation, with Roger Smalley, Tim Souster and Robin Thompson, and joined the local progressive rock group Henry Cow, formed by Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson, in which he alternated between bass and drums.After leaving Cambridge he performed as a soloist at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, London.