At school, Francis tried to learn many different musical instruments. He realised he did not have the co-ordination to be able to play any of them really well. Tovey drifted away from the idea of playing music, and began getting involved in other art forms instead. He later studied visual arts and mime at Leeds Polytechnic. He felt the need to give his mime act some sort of musical accompaniment so he went back to the idea of recording music. The initial musical pieces were formed of sound manipulation using tape recorders.