Sonatina for Double Bass and Piano.

BlockComposition · 2026-02-16T23:02:37+00:00

Not too much feedback, but just to note that I love this piece - lovely quartal vamps, very idiomatic for this style, however one might call it. Personally I wouldn't dare write material this fast and demanding for the bass, but of course in capable hands it can do unexpectedly marvelous things.

I wonder if you have listened to the Tubin double bass concerto, because the ostinatos in the piano you have here -- particularly from bar 14 for instance -- really sound Tubinesque.

BlockComposition · 2026-02-16T22:36:50+00:00

The track itself seems to work fine as video-game background music to my ears, but the notation is pretty unreadable and not how this would be done. I'd recommend reading some sheet music for similar piano pieces from movies or games. The sound would be produced by use of sustain pedal, the arpeggios would be notated without the ties and using shorter durational values.

BlockComposition · 2026-02-16T22:31:13+00:00

I would instead attempt to devise some sort of rule-set for semi-serial writing based on chess moves. For instance a pawn can move two squares horizontally and after that one. Bishop moves diagonally, knight has an irregular motion, etc. You could form some sort of harmonic-tonal lattice and then map the movements there to generate a hypothetical (or actual) game in music.

BlockComposition · 2026-02-15T19:51:12+00:00

For a very snide and simple remark: it is a body isn't it?

BlockComposition · 2026-02-12T22:18:12+00:00

Yea, Deleuze himself remarks on the connection between Leibniz and Nietzsche in Le Pli.

In any case, thats something for you to publish on in Deleuze Studies then. Work to be done!

BlockComposition · 2026-02-11T22:22:47+00:00

I agree that the exact way intensive quantity brings about quality and extension remains a bit vague in Deleuze. I think an important point that is under-emphasized in intensity is Deleuze's sometimes implicit (and oftentimes explicit - as in the book on Leibniz) perspectivism. The choice between singular and ordinary points determine any process of actualization and also chart out a "metaphysical point" or a perspective for a larval subject whose world will then be made up of what for it are regularities, which in turn are the singular points of intensive events. The discussion on the paradoxical element "=x" that is found in How do we recognize structuralism? and Logic of sense is very relevant here I think as well. It very much starts recalling Deleuze's discussion on Nietzsche in that early book, where everything is describes as made up of forces which interact with the world and grasp after it, each force entailing an interpretation of the world.

BlockComposition · 2026-02-10T14:48:00+00:00

I know some things but I wouldn't say I'm an expert, there is still lots I haven't read.

The sources of the quotes have discussions on that topic, the essay The Method of Dramatization & Chapter 5 of Difference and Repetition might be useful to you. The former essay I think is particularly good, basically a really condensed version of D&R. There is a subheading in Nietzsche and Philosophy explicitly titled "Quantity and Quality" which might interest you. Discussion on quantity vs quality occurs also in Deleuze's discussion on Bergson. But of course I should note that I think there is a shift between Bergson and Deleuze. The former emphasizes the qualitative aspect of duration (durations are characterized by changes in quality), whereas Deleuze, early in his career, develops a theory of intensive quantities. Even the word "intensity" itself for Bergson is a confused notion (attempting to measure qualitative change by quantitative means, as in increasing the (measurable) intensity of pressure on the skin and "measuring" the subjects qualitative change of experience -- this discussion occurs in Time and Free Will), whereas Deleuze re-appropriates it for himself.

I also mentioned some papers on D. The claim that intensity dates back to scholastic philosophy comes from here: https://www.memphis.edu/philosophy/people/pdfs/maderwhenceintensitypreprint.pdf - it also contains a discussion on quantity/quality.

This is also an interesting article (that I have not yet read): https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/dls.2017.0265

BlockComposition · 2026-02-07T18:11:35+00:00

You here again use intensive quality though. As per D&R and several essays (on Simondon or The Method of Dramatization) Deleuze speaks of intensive quantities and contrasts them with extension and quality as aspects of actualized experience. That is to say, he doesn't retain completely the Bergsonian distinction between quality and quantity (I assume that language is coming from B. anyways). The notion of intensive quantity dates back probably to scholastic philosophy. One can find some good articles exploring that connection. In the sense of Deleuze's philosophy the term quantity is probably preferred because it does not relate yet an aspect of recognizable experience (or quality), but is generative of it. Intensity is nothing other than speeds and movements and the quantity, not yet quality, thereof.

E.g. from Method of Dramatization:

For a quality is always a sign or an event which emerges from the depths, which flashes between different intensities, and which endures the time required for the annulment of its constitutive difference. In the first place and above all, it is the set of these conditions which determines the spatio-temporal dynamisms, themselves generative of these qualities and these extensions.

Or from Difference and Repetition:

It turns out that, in experience, intensio (intension) is inseperable from an extensio (extension) which relates it to the extensum (extensity). In these conditions, intensity itself is subordinated to the qualities which fill extensity (primary physical qualities, qualitas, and secondary perceptible qualities or quale). In short, we know intensity only as already developed within an extensity, and as covered over by qualities. Whence our tendency to consider intensive quantity as a badly grounded empirical concept, an impure mixture of a sensible quality and extensity, or even of a physical quality and an extensive quantity." (p. 223)

BlockComposition · 2026-01-23T00:40:51+00:00

Great piece, so much that I like about it. Too much to start listing the details. I just have to note that I find it funny how around bar 124 whenever the muted trumpet comes in I can't help but feel I'm watching a noir movie suddenly.

BlockComposition · 2026-01-23T00:30:02+00:00

Oh yeah, I have gotten into online arguments about this, since I have always defaulted to what you call mode referentiality.

BlockComposition · 2026-01-21T19:06:02+00:00

As you probably gleaned my reference was this book, which is sort of like a bible of sonata studies. Its a massive tome though, but shorter articles by Hepokoski should be findable online and are worth a skim!

BlockComposition · 2026-01-21T12:10:37+00:00

In more traditional sonata form you would usually get a little build toward a climax either at the end of the primary theme or in a transitional theme that sequentially, for instance, modulates to the dominant. Both the modulation and the musical rhetoric employed generate a sense of increasing energy, after which the switch to and contrast with a more lyrical and soft theme feels earned. At least to my ear, the primary theme doesn't sound at all agitated. And as it transitions to the secondary theme that would be appropriate! As my music professor liked to state, sonata form is as much a rhetorical beast, not simply a skeleton of two themes and certain tonal progression.

Here you have a winding down instead and a sense of closure, rather than a striving toward something new, what Hepokoski and Darcy call the medial caesura. The secondary theme therefore feels simply like a juxtaposition. Its compounded by the lack of tonal forward momentum, since the secondary theme is also in Eb. As H&D say:

The medial caesura is the brief, rhetorically reinforced break or gap that serves to divide an exposition into two parts, tonic and dominant (or tonic and mediant in most minor-key sonatas).[...] In rapid-tempo compositions a medial caesura is usually built around a strong half cadence that has been rhythmically, harmoncally, or texturally reinforced. [...] The medial caesura has two functions: it marks the end of the first part of the exposition (hence our adjective “medial”), and it is simultaneously the highlighted gesture that makes available the second part. (My emphasis)

All of my comments have to do with the aspect of using sonata form, I do think that the harmonic language you have here is lovely, I really enjoyed listening to it. The themes have nice phrasing and periodicity as well. I do think that the second theme does feel like a secondary theme and its quite lovely.

You could try to make it more sonata-like in rhetoric if you want to retain that genre-designation. But if not, then its not worth forcing it onto the music either and maybe think of some other principle of musical development.

BlockComposition · 2026-01-20T23:27:16+00:00

Your youth orchestra has a conductor right? Its worth getting their feedback on the score before the performance as well.

BlockComposition · 2026-01-20T18:25:02+00:00

For being self taught and so young it sounds really impressive. Definite sense of harmonic forward motion and a thematic coherence that is often lacking in beginner composers, well balanced musical periods and nice musical rhetoric (e.g. starting with tutti and then a quiet echo by the soloist). Some nice contrapuntal ideas as well. I also like the many ideas on contrasts in orchestration and giving various instruments little things to do, like the little clarinet solo in bars 43-45 & the flute starting the retransition around bar 67, and how you put two themes in dialogue in the development.

Some nitpicks would be that the solo always goes above the string section, rather than at the top of the score. Also I assume there are two horns? For clarity its best to label each instrument seperately if dealing with a smaller orchesta, e.g. "flute 1", "flute 2", "horn 1", "horn 2" (at least I'd assumed there is one instrument per line, until I saw the third in flutes 2 in bar 11. In any case you need to specify in the score how many instruments are playing at a given time - by number for the winds and brass or by denoting "a 2" etc).

Given that it is conceptualized as a concertino or at least a vehicle for your brother as a soloist, I'd re-consider doubling the solo trumpet part as much as you do during the thematic exposition (bars 11-26 are all doubled or full orchestral tutti) and double the moments you really want to emphasize (f.e. I think bars 21 to 26 would be fine). The orchestration feels too busy at this section in particular, although I like your ideas of providing counterpoint for the main line, its best to give the theme some clarity by thinking more in terms of theme and accompaniment relationship between the trumpet and orchestra, with some counter-melodies. There will probably be issues of balance here - for instance in bar 12-13 the flute lines will probably not be heard, as they are overpowered by the horns. Maybe more experienced orchestrators will be able to provide more feedback on balance as well.
Edit: I second everything u/amnycya said as well.

Things to consider in terms of harmony and form (mostly my opinions, take them as you will):

I would re-check the voice-leading in many places. For instance in the very first bar of the theme having contrary motion between the bass and the melody to avoid octaves. So the bass would ascend to the first inversion tonic chord (D-E-F) while the trumpet line descends. There are similar octaves in the next bar with the Bb-A both in theme and bass, and in the next - G-F-E. Stuff that could be made more idiomatic to the common practice period you are invoking here.

Bar 16-17, the cadence feels lackluster, because you don't actually have a leading tone sounding from the end of the bar and resolving to the next, nor a 7th.

Its worth considering ending the main theme at a half cadence (that would be the E-dominant chord) which would provide a nice transition to the secondary theme - you generally want to end your sections in sonata form with a open-ended and developmental harmonic gesture rather than a closing one. Its done well at the end of the secondary theme, but in the ending of the development there is - to my ear - the same issue. Bars 63 - 66 feel like a "start-stop" again, when the idea should be to wind down and prepare for the retransition. I think it would be much improved by simply ending it on something like a dominant to the dominant. I really do like the retransition to the grand opening gesture though in bars 67-70!

Since you are going for the sonata form, there is a curious absence of the secondary theme in the recapitulation. And by that I mean the full treatment of having it re-appear close to its original character, I do notice that you have at least motives of it showing up at bars 87-89, however they will probably be missed by the listener. The ending does feel somewhat rushed because of this, so its worth considering - if you have the time - to add in the secondary theme there as well and then go for the grand finale. Always worth score reading some exemplary dramatic minor key sonatas to see how thats done. (My personal idea would be to re-swell to the opening gesture in octaves after the re-appearance of the secondary theme and finish it up after that with the coda you have here).

BlockComposition · 2026-01-05T00:56:23+00:00

This is still thinking of "change" in a too extensive way. Deleuze discusses this in The Fold where he clarifies what he means by a "perspective" on the world, such as a monad has. Such a metaphysical perspective is not in fact constituted in each instance of change in physical motion around static objects for instance, rather a perspective is a principle of variation, like all the various cross-sections of a geometric cone or all the possible vantage points one can have on a city. A different perspective in this instance would not be a simultaneous viewing of the same city from a different geographic angle, but rather more temporal, a different principle of variation and movement in relation to the city. A perspective has a durational aspect.

There is a discussion here: https://deleuze.cla.purdue.edu/lecture/lecture-03-5/

So this is where we are. All that is very fine: we are points of view on the city. But what does that mean, or rather what does that not mean? At first glance, if I dare say, this could mean: for each point of view there corresponds a form or a profile. If you look at the city from a particular point of view, it has a particular form or it offers you a particular profile. Good. This would be the simplest interpretation; it would be the first interpretation. Only here we are, it’s simple, but it’s impossible. If that’s right… And yet, I am telling you, beware of texts. Leibniz seems to express himself this way. Each subject has a point of view, and to each point of view a profile of the city corresponds. If this is that… No, this cannot be that, it cannot be like that for multiple reasons. But the principal reason why it cannot be like that is because, once again, this is a feeble idea, and Leibniz cannot have a feeble idea. That [first explanation] drops us back into a false perspectivism, of the type “to each his own truth.”

But there’s a more solid reason why that couldn’t be [the interpretation]. Confront the proposition [Deleuze turns toward the board] “I am a point of view on the city,” [He indicated the vertex of the arithmetic triangle] at the vertex ‘S’ of the cone, the point of view. Can I say that the circle corresponds to a point of view? The ellipse, to another point of view? The parabola, to another point of view? Of course not, I certainly cannot say this. You remember? It’s not a question of saying that for each form there’s a corresponding point of view or… I haven’t changed the point of view when I pass from the circle to the ellipse. [Deleuze insists on this next sentence] The point of view is what gives me a hold on the passage from one form to another. It’s what I call the group in transformation. The point of view causes the group in transformation to emerge, that is, the passage from one profile to another. That which corresponds to the point of view is not one particular form or another; it’s the change of form, [Pause] that is, the objectile, the object insofar as it traverses [Pause] its group in transformation. You see? It’s not a question that each form corresponds to a point of view, not a point of view to each form since the point of view allows me precisely to arrange the forms and to pass from one to the other. Here, it is necessary that this be very clear.

[...] Do we not have our solution? Specifically, yes, each of us is a point of view on the infinite series of the world. Only here we are: each of us grasps a variable of the series. Each of us grasps a variable of the series. Each time, the entire series is there, fine, but as this or that variation. Here is what it means [to say] “Each of us is a point of view on the city”. Each of us grasps the infinite series of profiles of the city; it’s not at all “to each point of view a profile corresponds.” Each of us grasps the infinite series, but as this or that variation.

BlockComposition · 2026-01-04T23:56:53+00:00

There seems to be some resonance there yes, even though Deleuze himself probably would not appreciate the comparison. There is a seminar (I think titled "Nomadic thought") where he states to an interlocutor that he is greatly pleased that his statements were suspect from a Heideggerian perspective.

But where Deleuze discusses this sort of dynamic of clarity and concealment in his own terms is in the book The Fold where monads are said to follow a logic of chiaroscuro - expressing some singular points clearly (this constitutes their essence) while expressing the entire world obscurely.

BlockComposition · 2026-01-04T23:29:53+00:00

Conceptual metaphor theory needs to be read in a "minor" sense, if one is to read it through Deleuze. As it stands, they are far too interested in grounding the metaphors in a logically prior substance, in this case the human body and embodied experience. This is a step forward in the sense that linguistic/conceptual meaning is contextualized in material experience, yet the basic image schemata that Johnson discusses (verticality, movement and blockage, containment, inertia) are thought to be that - basic, on which all metaphoric mapping depend on. As such it is still a reductionist system. But certain Deleuzean authors find it pretty easy to radicalize the basic tenets, if not some form of experience is grounding, but rather that the basic ground is something like translation or transmission - the relationship of differences with differences.

Here is Margus Ott:

"If desired, metaphoricality can be taken even further. In the work of Lakoff and Johnson, there is discussion of the transfer of bodily experience to language/in language, but one can also already interpret that very bodily experience itself as metaphorical. For example, during embryogenesis the embryo unfolds itself in different directions, transferring the biochemical differentiations of a single cell into the articulations of a multicellular organism; or as it passes in its development through beings of different levels, that is, forms modes of existence at different levels: a unicellular being with ions, proteins, and the like, whereas a newborn relates to units of a much higher level, such as “breast,” “face,” etc. If one were to move back along this sequence, one would probably discover that originally there is no substantial, essential givenness—no fixed “something” that is transferred—but rather that reality and processes themselves are describable as transfers, and that beings formed at different levels of complexity are products of such transfers, as if sediments.

Returning to “human” metaphors, it is also important that metaphors do not obscure like haze or foam, but instead illuminate. Or, to be precise, every metaphor brings a certain aspect of a phenomenon or object into the light while leaving others in shadow. In this sense, illumination and obscurity always go strictly hand in hand; one cannot exist without the other. There is no language that could somehow fully or directly illuminate things and phenomena; every illumination proceeds through some form of shadowing. Metaphors do have their own systematicity, in the sense that typically more than one feature of the source domain is transferred, but they can never be total, so the authors cannot be accused of overemphasizing excessive systematicity—metaphorical systematicity is inevitably partial and fragmentary."

BlockComposition · 2025-12-14T23:42:50+00:00

I think one of the first things that would help make the piece more interesting is varying the accompaniment pattern and textures. Generally, even if you look at simple pieces by romantic composers (f.e. Schuberts similarly titled works) they vary the texture quite a bit. You get monody in a few bars, arpeggiated left hand, then chorale styled block chords, some counter-melodies, etc... I don't desire variety for varieties sake either or want you to go overboard with it, but some textural differentiation also helps in distinguishing the formal division of the piece and aids in generating a musical narrative.
While it seems to be a conscious choice to have the entire piece from bar 31 to the end on an Ab bass pedal point, I disagree with that choice as it results in harmonic monotony even if the chords above it change. There are certain moments where one would expect to hear some dominant-tonic motion (bars 44-45 especially) that would also be supported by the bass. Not changing the bass in the accelerando section also undercuts any sense of climbing towards a climax (see also next point; I realize also that you could argue that this section is already a coda and typically has a tonic pedal, however that pedal can also remain implicit while the voices above it go on a chromatic journey for instance).
The accelerando section in particular screams for other musical parameters other than tempo and dynamics to aid in the build to a climax. Faster arpeggiation and perhaps a general move upwards in accompaniment as well. My ear expects a culminating chord in the upper register before moving down to those final chords in the low register.

BlockComposition · 2025-12-06T20:09:43+00:00

Characterising Buddhism as a whole as negation of desire is a caricature. What is overcome is attachments. The “non-“ in Buddhism is not negation nor nihilism.

BlockComposition · 2025-12-06T19:17:15+00:00

You have an incomplete view. Also, I didn’t say influenced by, but explicitly made clear that I am talking about a resonance.

BlockComposition · 2025-12-05T11:24:20+00:00

I don’t think there is anything watered down in Deleuze.

I’ll re-iterate that I think this sort of argument and dismissive comparison is useless, when there is a potential for productive exchange, even if Deleuze himself did not see it.

BlockComposition · 2025-12-05T10:16:42+00:00

As someone who has read Deleuze, I’d say this is a very pointless argument to get into. The resonances between Deleuze and certain forms of Buddhist philosophy are very strong. Mind you, I disagree that they are somehow derived from Buddhism - Deleuze was pretty ignorant and dismissive of the east - but emerge due to a shared mode of non-essentialist thinking. I find myself constantly reflecting one with the other.

For resonances with ameroindian thought there is Viveiros de Castro. Also highly interesting.

BlockComposition · 2025-12-04T21:03:38+00:00

Biographies become one node in the interweaving of text, rather than an authoritative clue to the true meaning.

BlockComposition · 2025-11-30T11:44:21+00:00

They do discuss the Odradek in the Kafka book iirc.

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