Each movement has two or three sections which get progressively faster by passing through a metric (or pulse) modulation, like a boat moving through a lock. At these moments of the piece, there is also a color/texture shift from one quartet to the other. The three movements essentially present the same rhythmic theme in different colors. The first movement utilizes only indefinite pitched metal and wood instruments. The second movement presents a repetition and extension of the rhythms in the first movement using definite pitched metal and wood instruments. In this way, the first two movements present the aural equivalent of non-representational (indefinite pitch) and representational imagery (definite pitch) in visual art. Or, to use another visual metaphor, this process of recasting the same material without and with definite pitches is akin to "color-izing" an image that was originally seen in black and white. The third movement repeats and extends the music of the second, returning to indefinite pitched instruments, all eight players on skins. The movements are not exact rhythmic repetitions of one another. Much of the writing is imitative, canonic, and even fugal at times; it also includes passages of call and response, and hocketing. The main theme is simple and elemental, and the predominant rhythmic patterns are additive, irregular groupings.