Chou's revolutionary insights brought about a broader and more integrated perception of Chinese music by scholars and laymen East and West. He recognized the intrinsic contribution of qin music and the single tone concept to Chinese music, and more importantly, he recognized their value to composers. ("The Twain Meet" by Leighton Kerner.) Also important to his music was the refinement of individual pitches. He believed the West has mastered formal structures, whereas the East remains ineffective in controlling subtle inflections of tones. By emulating Western achievement in formal design, he employed these nuances not as mere decoration, but as a clear structural element. The art of calligraphy, in its various levels of meaning, serves constantly as the music's philosophical underpinning. A controlled spontaneity and quiet intensity derived from an intimate knowledge of his art and his culture, together with a growth process as organic and inevitable as that of nature, remain requisite stylistic elements. Ultimately, he sought not so much to amalgamate the divergent Eastern and Western traditions as to internalize and transcend contemporary idioms and techniques to create an intimately personal style that reflects a genuine, modern sensibility. ("Chou Wen-chung" by Nicolas Slonimsky)