"As soon as the composition is stressed and the rhythm becomes more absolute, the expression becomes more universal (the fugues of Bach, for example, or in modern music Van Domselaer's ‘Experiments in Style’)."

“Thus a new ‘color’ was introduced into music like that of the Luminists and Neo-Impressionists in painting—freer and lighter (Debussy)”

“The traditional means of music veil pure relationships by their individual character. Sound and the scale itself are based on the natural, the animal. The timbre of conventional instruments is basically animal and individual in character, like the human vocal organs that they more or less imitate.”

“This silence should not exist in the new music. It is a void that is immediately filled by the listener’s individuality. Even a Schönberg, despite his valuable contributions, fails to express purely the new spirit in music because he uses this ‘silence.’”

“Due to the character of their instruments and their attachment to the old scale and the old composition, the Italian Futurists do not achieve the ‘new’ music. Neither does the jazz band despite all its innovations. The Futurists achieve in a different way what the jazz band does.”

“The bruiteurs unconsciously demonstrate the need for instruments that do not imitate natural reality. They demonstrate that ‘art’ is quite different from ‘nature.’ Nevertheless, their music, using old harmonies despite new instruments, will deeply influence the coming music. It shows clearly the valuelessness for our time of the old harmony. Perhaps it will hasten understanding of the fact that the old music actually corresponds to the painting of the past.”

“Some ten years ago Marinetti proclaimed the necessity of speed. Since the idea of speed is expressed plastically in ‘the straight,’ it is surprising that the Italian Futurists have not rigorously applied this truth either to painting or to music. Absolute speed expresses in time what ‘straightness’ establishes in space.”

“In the bar we find the childlike experience that eludes the people of modern society with their grim seriousness—although already they are less ‘serious’ than those before them. They oppose joy to seriousness; they wear a smile when they dance and look grave when they go about their business. In the bar, happiness and seriousness are one. Equilibrium is there, for everything is subsumed by rhythm. There is no emptiness, no boredom: rhythm fills everything without creating new oppression—it does not become form.”

“Jazz and Neo-Plasticism are revolutionary phenomena in the extreme: they are destructive-constructive. They do not destroy the actual content of form, they only deepen form and annihilate it in favor of a new order. Breaking the limitations of ‘form as particularity,’ they make universal unity possible.”

“This passage from art to life is seen most clearly in jazz and in Neo-Plasticism. True, both remain in the auditory and visual sphere, but this sphere is now so closely bound up with life as to be concrete for us.”

“Jazz—being free of musical convention—now realizes an almost pure rhythm, thanks to its greater intensity of sound and to its oppositions. Its rhythm already gives the illusion of being ‘open,’ unhampered by form.”

“Even so, the duality in modern dance music is not an opposition of true contraries—although in the jazz band we sometimes hear sounds by which their timbre and attack are more or less opposed to traditional ‘harmonious’ sound, and which clearly demonstrate that it is possible to construct ‘nonsound.’”

“When an art is expressed by color and noncolor, it will be painting; but because the colors and noncolors will be shown in time and not in space, it will approach music. Because time and space are only different expressions of the same thing, in the Neo-Plastic conception, music is plastic (i.e. expression in space), and the ‘plastic’ (painting) is possible in time.”

“It is quite possible for music to become ‘abstract’ and cease to be dominated by the natural to the extent that its expressive means (sound) allow.... In music, however, it must be done differently than in painting. Pure expression of the new spirit in music comes naturally by interiorizing composition and the expressive means as profoundly as possible.”

“To achieve a more universal plastic, the new music must dare to create a new order of sounds and nonsounds (determined noise). Such a plastic is inconceivable without new technique and new instruments. Mechanical intervention will prove necessary, for the human touch always involves the individual to some degree and prevents the perfect determination of sound.”

“The most profound art cloaks itself in the least capricious appearance. In music, the expression of art becomes almost ‘mineral.’ Thus, Neo-Plasticism expresses the reconciliation of art and matter.”

“For example, by repeating sounds in different relationships, it will be possible to express with a minimal number of sounds and noises the richness and fullness that Neo-Plastic painting achieves with its few basic colors. Although of brief duration, the composition will allow the formation of an ‘image.’”

“If the composition is to express equivalence and to neutralize its two elements, then its ‘plane’ sounds (in the language of painting) should not have the same intensity or be similar in character. A very loud sound can be opposed by a relatively slight but altogether different noise.”

“If we are to abstract sound, the instruments must first produce sounds as constant as possible in wavelength and number of vibrations. Then they must be so constructed that all vibration will stop when the sound is suddenly broken off.”

“Similarly in music, it will be necessary to seek reduction to the plane, to purity, and to exact definition, as far as sound and noise permit. The new music must first achieve the means of reproducing sound and noise, which as much as possible will no longer have the round or closed character of form but, on the contrary, will have the character of the straight and unlimited. This will require instruments of new design.”

“Their number will be determined by practice: probably three sounds and three nonsounds (as in painting: red, blue, yellow: white, black, gray).”

“The hall will be readily accessible. It will be possible to come and go without disturbing others, to hear and to see comfortably.”

“... for one might leave the building without missing anything. Indeed, compositions could be repeated, just as modern cinemas schedule the same film at stated times. There could be long intermissions: for those who stay the interval could be filled by Neo-Plastic paintings. When it becomes technically possible, these could also appear as projected images.... The rectangular planes of color and noncolor can be projected separately and successively. The planes and their composition cannot be taken directly from Neo-Plastic painting, for their expression in time (as in music) has different requirements.”

“The electrical sound equipment will be invisible and conveniently placed. The hall will meet the new acoustical requirements of ‘sound-noise.’”

“Jazz above all creates the bar’s open rhythm. It annihilates. Everything that opens has an annihilating action. This frees rhythm from form and from so much that is form without ever being recognized as such. Thus a haven is created for those who would be free of form. Everything in the bar moves and at the same time is at rest.”

“Basic to all rhythm is the rhythm of horizontal and vertical. That is why everything is pervaded by an element of rest. But even this inward rhythm remains ‘natural’ if it is not opened by form-annihilating relationships, which jazz rhythm is already attaining.”

“In Neo-Plastic music nonsound will be in opposition to sound, as color is opposed to noncolor in Neo-Plastic painting. ‘Non-sound’ with be noise, not sound. It should be possible to create nonsound from noise which, through its timbre and manner of production, achieves deepest purity and exact determination.... Both sound and noise will be manifested as fundamental sound and fundamental nonsound, like color and noncolor (white, black, gray) in Neo-Plastic painting.”