Mu­sic ap­pears in the form of a dance of tones, mo­tifs, and se­quences.
In the imagi­na­tion of a com­poser, these mu­si­cal ele­ments dance in his mind in that same in­no­cent and non-pur­pose-bound man­ner as butterflies dance over a meadow, as waves dance over the ocean, or as the leaves of trees dance in the autumn wind.

This dance of the mu­si­cal ele­ments takes place in nu­mer­ous spaces: in the mu­si­cal sound-space, in the deeper and wider motif-spaces, in the even deeper and even more com­pre­hen­sive se­quence-spaces, and in the in­fin­ity of the space of the har­mony.

The danc­ing move­ments of the mu­si­cal ele­ments flow in the in­fin­ity of time.

The hi­er­ar­chy in which the danc­ing mu­si­cal pa­rame­ters move is com­pletely de­ter­mined by the laws of the har­mony.
Thereby, the har­mony-tech­nique is the basis for the or­ders of the se­quence-tech­nique, and these in turn are the basis for the mani­fold or­ders of the motif-tech­nique.

To­nal­ity ex­pres­ses the mu­si­cal, cul­tural limits of the dance – the danc­ing floor; the tones ex­press the danc­ing move­ments of the mo­tifs – the dancers; and the melo­dies de­scribe the life-story of the dancers.

Guided by the se­quence, the mo­tifs dance exuberantly to­wards each other or apart again, like the quali­ties of the hu­man char­ac­ter, which they rep­re­sent, dance to­wards each other or apart again; and their danc­ing shoes appear in the fir­ma­ment of mu­sic as tones, as the shoot­ing stars which flash abundantly across the danc­ing floor of the to­nal­ity.

The mo­tifs and the se­quences are ab­stract, not con­crete. There­fore, the in­di­vid­uals which wear those danc­ing shoes are in­visi­ble to the mu­sic spec­ta­tor who lis­tens only su­per­fi­cially; and only the true mu­sic lover rec­og­nizes their mul­tiple shapes and forms in the fir­ma­ment of mu­sic with in­creas­ing clar­ity.

From the level of his pas­sive mu­sic con­sump­tion, the av­er­age mu­sic con­sumer only rec­og­nizes the danc­ing shoes from be­low. The act­ing per­son­ali­ties of the mu­si­cal drama, how­ever, are so far in­visi­ble to him.

When­ever clas­si­cal mu­sic suc­ceeds in en­hanc­ing the af­fec­tion and the at­ten­tion of the lis­tener then, step-by-step, it will re­veal it­self to him as his own in­ner “pleas­ure of danc­ing,” and be­yond the soles of the danc­ing shoes, be­yond the tones, he will rec­og­nize the actors: he will rec­og­nize the mani­fold quali­ties of his own char­ac­ter, and him­self as the choreographer, as the dancers, and also as the proc­ess of danc­ing it­self and as the joy of danc­ing. Then he will enjoy him­self, in the full­est sense of the word, as the solo en­ter­tainer in the ballet of mu­sic.