'3 or 5 of 10 for 4' is a quartet for 4 instruments. As the title page suggests the composition is primarily for recorders, but other wind instruments may be used. As matter of fact at the performance in 1970 the instruments used were flute, clarinet, french horn and bassoon.

The title refers to subsets of 3 or 5 elements of sets consisting of 10 different notes beeing played by 4 musicians. The tone set of each section is a 10 note chromatically consecutive subset of the full 12 note set. Each 10 note subset starts a whole note above the previous subset. Exactly 6 different subsets can made corresponding to the 6 sections of the composition.