Despite any difficulties that his suspected Communist sympathies might have posed, Copland traveled extensively during the 1950s and early 60s to observe the avant-garde styles of Europe, hear compositions by Soviet composers not well known in the West and experience the new school of Polish music. While in Japan, he was taken with the work of Toru Takemitsu and began a correspondence with him that would last over the next decade. Copland revised his text "The New Music" with comments on the styles that he encountered. He found much of what he heard dull and impersonal. Electronic music seemed to have "a depressing sameness of sound," while aleatoric music was for those "who enjoy teetering on the edge of chaos". As he summarized, "I've spent most of my life trying to get the right note in the right place. Just throwing it open to chance seems to go against my natural instincts."