Cold Cliff Echoes is scored for four doublebasses distributed around a performance space. Although a quartet, the basses are grouped in 2 duos. The duos share many musical characters, often at the same time; occasionally, though, the duos flesh out their respective characters independently of each other. At times this results in a "call and response" context: while one duo focuses on developing particular musical ideas, the other remains relatively static, generalizing and embracing the principles of the other duo only after the other has moved on to other musical terrains.

The musical material of Cold Cliff Echoes is largely textural and timbral. This point speaks to my original impetus for writing this work: because the wavelengths of the doublebass are so long in physical space, individual notes can be difficult, and nearly impossible, to discern. For this reason, pitches are partially relieved of their structural importance. This provides fertile ground for the flowering of musical parameters not often investigated on their own terms. While pitch material (and its transformation over time) remains vital to the cohesion of this work, movement between focal textures incites continuity and teleology within the music.

There exists an apt scenario from Chinese legend that somewhat describes the disposition of Cold Cliff Echoes:
2 poets, Han Shan and Shih te, lived secluded from society in the mountains, stealing food from a nearby monastery for sustenance. Conversing throughout the night, the surrounding caves and valleys of the mountains must surely have been resonant with the sound of concerned discourse interjected with wild laughter. Hearing Cold Cliff Echoes in the proper concert setting would not be unlike walking through such valleys, engulfed in distant, unseen voices and guffaws.