"Probably, whenever the ear and imagination have matured enough for such music, the scale and the instruments will all at once be available."

— Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951), from Theory of Harmony (1921) [pp. 25 - 26]

"The transcription of recordings of folk music should be as true as possible. ... [pitch] deviations, since they show a certain system and are subconsciously intentional, must not be considered faulty, off-pitch singing. ... The first problem with which we have to deal is with what degree of exactitude we shall transcribe these deviations in pitch."

— Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945), from Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs (1943) [pp. 3 - 4]

Q: Is any musical element still susceptible to radical exploitation and development?

A: "Yes: pitch. I even risk a prediction that pitch will comprise the main difference between the 'music of the future' and our music"

— Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971), from Memories and Commentaries (1970) [p. 115]

"Our musical alphabet must be enriched."

— Edgard Varèse (1883 - 1956), from the New York Morning Telegraph, (1916)

"In France, ... most of the young composers use microintervals now. Almost all of them, so that the musicians from their youth are not so afraid of it any more. And it's very easy to train the ear."

— Gérard Grisey (1946 - 1998), from an interview David Bundler (1996)

Q: What is your interest in the idea to break the scale into quarter-tones or smaller intervals? Is it philosophical, is it technical or what?

A: "It sounds marvellous."

— Karlheinz Stockhausen (1927 - 2007), from an interview with Richard Dufallo (1987)

"... the gradation of the octave is infinite, and let us draw a little nearer to infinitude."

— Ferruccio Busoni (1866 - 1924), from Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music (1911)

"Nobody dares tell a painter not to use this or that color. There is no law ordering sculptors to use only marble under the chisel ... I dare to predict that when more tuning systems are avaiolable to composers, the contrast of moods will be a most powerful addition to any composer's vocabulary."

— Ivor Darreg (1917 - 1994), from It Is Time To Release Composers From Hidden Constraints (1982)