He began to realise that what distinguished African music from European (except perhaps for early music like that of Hildegard of Bingen) was its unawareness of proportion. African music is not deliberately asymmetric, it has no precise proportions: patterns are created by addition, not subdivision. In many cases repetition is not perceived. The music ends as abruptly as it begins, like birdsong. No rhythm is arrived at by calculation - [his teacher] Stockhausen calculates everything... Western music was always architectural: he wanted a music in which the roof floated free.

Bruce Chatwin (1989 p.67), about his friend, the South African composer Kevin Volans.