This work involves the expansion and contraction of a counterpointed pair of melodies, which the composer calls a "formula". In this particular work (the first of a long succession of compositions to use formula technique), Stockhausen chose the term "mantra" in order "to avoid the words "theme", "row" or "subject", as in a fugue" (Stockhausen 2003, 2), and "Mantra" also became the title of the entire work. In "Mantra", the two-strand formula is stated near the outset of the piece by piano I. According to the composer, the mantra "has thirteen notes, and each cymbal sound occurring once in the piece indicates the large sections—you hear the cymbal whenever a new central sound announces the next section of the work". Although "the cymbals have the same pitches as the "mantra" and can thus mark the 13 form cycles of the two pianists … they are not identical", and "there are also some sections in which a larger number of cymbal strokes occurs". Though this mantra recurs constantly, the structure of the composition is not a theme and variations as found in classical composers such as Beethoven and Bach, because the material is never varied, only expanded and contracted (both in duration and in pitch) to different degrees; not a single note is ever added, it is never "accompanied" or embellished. The comparatively strict predetermination of the form plan is occasionally broken and altered through the use of insertions, additions, and small deviations and exceptions. Near the end of the composition there is an extremely fast section that is a compression of the entire work into the smallest temporal space; in this section, all of the expansions and transpositions of the mantra formula are summarized as fast as possible and in four layers.