The quartet included to violins, a viola and a cello. The first violin and the cello were the dominant instruments for the majority of the performance, with the second violin accompanying the first, and the viola alternating between accompanying the violins and the cello.  Typically, the different instruments’ rests did not coincide, which gave the performers time to turn the pages of their sheet music, and that the song continued uninterrupted. When the instruments did rest at the same time, the effect was more dramatic, having sound interspersed with silence; repeated pauses gave the music a stressful quality.

The cello set a base rhythm for the other instruments, as a drum would in other songs. The viola and violins sometimes played similarly, or the same with small variations, but the cello was almost always independent of the other three.

The songs all had repeated musical motifs, with either the cello or first violin playing it, and the rest of the instruments repeating it in order of how the musicians were seated. There were usually modifications with each repetition, variations on the same theme. The instruments typically did not begin all at once, rather, one instrument starting a song, and the others joining in one at a time. Both are somewhat of a call-and-response between the musicians.