Many existing understandings of harmony place it in a sphere beyond the strictly musical—for example, when harmony is linked to the fundamental ground of things, or when we sense in it a possibility of grasping the unity of the whole (τὸ πᾶν, totum). Here such understandings are called into question. The corresponding views of harmony—as a theoretical, pedagogical, and practical discipline, as well as within compositional practice—are examined in the tension between the rational striving for comprehensiveness in harmony and the perception of the consonance of sounds within the musical act.

From the perspective of musical practice, thematizing harmony and its foundations is problematic because it is unclear whether theoretical formulations arise from reflection on something actually heard, or whether they are merely constructs of self-sufficient rationality. Detached from the context of living music, where their prototype lies, musical modes still carry their substance, yet the use of predetermined or abstract theoretical models in creative activity condemns the composer to closedness and limitation.

Conversely, imitation within the tradition—arising from admiration and reverence for that which transcends us—can illuminate the original in tradition in an entirely new way; and our task is only to preserve it without altering it, and to perfect it while safeguarding it. Innovation arises from the unrepeatable manner in which the performer or devotee relates to that which they feel an impulse to imitate. In such a case, for the composer the work becomes an open system, and its goal lies beyond the system itself.