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Sunday, February 14, 2021
"Filmgoers Bringing Their Lunch in Large Paper Bags" for Flute. Bil Smith Composer.
I am frequently asked why I create new notational systems.
My response is "I don’t write works for our cognitive limits now, I write them for the
humans of the future and their expanded cognition."
"Sedated With A Lollipop"
For Slide Trumpet
Bil Smith Composer
Commissioned by Thermo Fisher
Published on LNM Editions
"Sedated With A Lollipop" For Slide Trumpet Bil Smith Composer 2017 Commissioned by Thermo Fisher Published on LNM E...
"BonnGasse Twenty"
For Solo Piano
Part of Susanne Kessell's 250 Piano Pieces for Beethoven Project
Bil Smith Composer
2016-2017
"BonnGasse Twenty" For Solo Piano Part of Susanne Kessell's 250 Piano Pieces for Beethoven Project Bil Smith Composer 2...
"An Air of Eerie Exoticism" For Clarinet and Flute. For Hanan Hadzajlic, Flute and Vasa Vučković, Clarinet
"An Air Of Eerie Exoticism" Flute and Clarinet Bil Smith Composer For Hanan Hadzajlic, Flute and Vasa Vučković, Clarinet ...
Listening to a piece of music involves time estimation. Not only the estimation of time passed (retrospective time estimation) but also an estimation of time to come (prospective time estimation).
This scalar property of time estimation has enormous implications for the way in which
we conceive of and execute musical form. As the interval of time increases, the error in temporal estimation exponentially increases, and thus, our ability to comprehend form decreases as the length of a piece increases.
"Evarq" A Fanfare for Two Piccolos. Bil Smith Composer
"Mimetized Disasters..." explores a rhythm that abandons counting, that engages with speed and duration as primary rather than secondary occurrences, and that emerges through the interface between movement and resistance and from models of force, viscosity, and friction.
In this work, I examine some of the limitations of existing rhythmic notation and, using examples from non-geometrical’ notational approaches. I had been struggling for some time with concerns about an increasing prevalence of notational grids, and
in particular the overwhelming dominance of the horizontal and the vertical in the notation of rhythm
"Mimetized Disasters, Dan Quayle And His Evangelist Wife In A Hotel Room". Page One "Mimetized Disasters, Dan Quayle And His Evangel...
Experiments in Notational Systems
Many composers compose pieces like they’re writing movies in a superhero franchise: all really similar, entertaining enough, but we’re bored...
"Everlest" for Pocket Flugelhorn. A Circos Tablature System.
"Everlest" for Pocket Flugelhorn Beginning in 2012, composers at Laboratorie New Music have been working on modifications of the Circos pr...
"Tarantella" for Clarinet in 'A' and Contrbassoon
"Madrigal Avalta Lucivity" A Compaction Music. Bil Smith
2020
The Recording on SoundCloud:
"Madrigal Avalta Lucivity" The Recording on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bil-smith/madrigal-avalta-lucivity On Compaction Music... I...
To be free is better than to be unfree....always. Any composer who suggests opposite should be treated as suspect.
Prior to composing "Hectoring Commentaries" I had never worked in such a fluid, open, exploratory, un-targeted fashion, and, if anything, I have gone out of my way in previous works to ensure that this level of improvisatory, intuitive, responsive compositional practice has always been confined exclusively to the final step in a compositional process that is otherwise about system, constraint, and resistance.
The notion of starting a project with such openness has been anathema to my compositional world-view. But what I have found in the process of writing 'Hectoring Commentaries' is that unfamiliarity can operate as its own ‘constraint scheme’, and, in many ways, the uncertainty and discomfort of my current compositional process has led me into much more unfamiliar territory and even more unforeseen solutions than perhaps my much more stringent, methodological approaches of previous works were designed to do.
My view was always that positions of constraint enabled me—or indeed forced me—into unknown, unfamiliar spaces and into an approach to compositional problem-solving that couldn’t have existed for me without that unfamiliarity. Through this project, my (provisional) discovery seems to be that it is that unfamiliarity and uncertainty that is important to a process of discovery, more than the strictures and mechanisms that led me to those points of uncertainty in previous works.
"Hectoring Commentaries" For Solo Viola (2015-2017) Recording, November 2017 by Renee Baker ...
New Notational System. October, 2020
New Notational System. October, 2020
My compositions, with complex and extended tablature notation have included extensive mapping of constantly shifting, sliding windows of available action on instruments, typically on multiple physical planes or with multiple aspects of an instrument’s mechanism.
I tend to work with large sets of independent and overlapping trajectories and vectors which control, or, rather, open up possibilities for types of action or gestural movement.
The intersection and collision of these various paths combine to create what are ostensibly phrases, though, as with the formal designs, the identities of these phrases emerge in quite unpredictable ways from the ground up. As with the aspects of large-scale form, most of the details of these trajectories are determined initially through random number generators (almost always dealing with only 5 or 6 possible digits or values, at most).
And each layer of musical material – dynamics, registral shapes, gestural families, individual gesture types, fingerings, embouchure position or tension, bow position or pressure or speed, instrument behavior patterns, ensemble interaction tendencies, etc. – are all given independent values at the beginning and end of each phrase.
Typically, I set up a very simple palette of possible gestural models (these are exceedingly simple and reductive in nature), with constantly shifting subsets of available options from within that initial collection.
"Mimetized Disasters, Dan Quayle And His Evangelist Wife In A Hotel Room". Page One "Mimetized Disasters, Dan Quayle And His Evangel...
LNM Editions.
Covers of The Published Scores of Laboratorie New Music.
Before delving too deeply into the physical nature of my music it will be helpful to
first make clear my views on the performer and the various physical demands asked of him
or her.
In my view the role of the interpreter is something to be considered very critically.
His approach to music is grounded in tradition and he sees himself as advancing music along an established path. This approach gives the performer greater capacity to create meaningful interpretations because they have something on which to fall back.
Room for interpretation is reduced dramatically when music leaves the performer to his or her own devices and forces independent creation of form. This happens when, instead of having a rich collection of musical ideas that relate to a piece, performers are forced to decipher various
symbols and improvise from a limited set of musical ideas.
"Polarized Agenda"
For Clarinet in A
Bil Smith
A Commission from Rheinmetall
"Polarized Agenda" For Clarinet in A Bil Smith A Commission from Rheinmetall
"Outfuse"
For String Quartet
Bil Smith Composer
2017
Published by LNM Editions
Link to Full Score (PDF)
"Outfuse" For String Quartet Bil Smith Composer 2017 Published by LNM Editions Link to Full Score (PDF) https:/...
I must admit this work, like most of my compositions, has come to be entirely intertwined with its notation, and that notation is fundamentally linked with how I work, how I start pieces, how my compositional methodology has come to define itself, how I have come to make music.
My approach to almost every aspect of musical material—rhythm, meter, gesture, dynamics, register, timbre, etc., etc.—is tied in with a compositional methodology that has become a ‘given’.
When I start a new work, most of the important decisions have already been made. That was highly intentional, at least initially. I designed a way of working that did what I wanted my music to do. But increasingly I’ve wanted to at least force myself to consider doing something else, and to do that my sense has been that it would be necessary to therefore upend the very process of making pieces.
I’ve considered a variety of approaches, but in the end they all felt like tinkering around the edges. I needed a less familiar space and a much higher degree of discomfort.
Float Level Femur For Flute, Oboe and Bass Clarinet Bil Smith 2016 A Commission from Fanuc
In this new work, it should be understood that my intention is to allow for and, on occasion, prioritize the “impurities” of instrumental sound.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Breaking New Ground Developing Compositional Tablatures with Big Data
"Spectrant Codes" for Cornet and Bass Flute. Bil Smith Composer Circos is a novel software program for visualizing data and informa...
"Charmed Into Docility"
for Bass Flute and Bassoon
Bil Smith Composer
2018
Published by LNM Editions
Link to Full Score (PDF)
"Charmed Into Docility" for Bass Flute and Bassoon Bil Smith Composer 2018 Published by LNM Editions Link to Full S...
"Cartoon Lucination Imposes Claims"
For Harp and Celeste
Bil Smith Composer
Commissioned by Alps Electronics
PDF Score:
"Cartoon Lucination Imposes Claims" For Harp and Celeste Bil Smith Composer Commissioned by Alps Electronics PDF Score...
Thrones De Los Cantares" (A Micro-Opera)
for 27 Voices (inclusive of Coloratura Soprano, Lyric Soprano, Heldentenor, Contralto, Baryton-Noble, Basso Buffo, Dugazon Soprano), Grapheticist*, and Chamber Ensemble. (Synthesis by Transient Drawing and Particle Cloning).
"Thrones De Los Cantares" (A Micro-Opera) for 27 Voices (inclusive of Coloratura Soprano, Lyric Soprano, Heldentenor, Contralt...
In what follows, I refer to the perception of all, including the composer. I use the word perception to mean the thinking is unclear. Even while writing these ideas there is a lack of clarity. The work seems to be ruined. Logic may be lost entirely.
Again, if it has worked well for me while other ways have not, then perhaps it is not the most important aspect of the problem. After that the post-conceptual composer is free even to surprise himself. Ideas are discovered by intuition (or, more likely, accident).
What is the work of notation? This kind of notation is for all composers. I have tried to state them with as much clarity as possible.
If the statements I make are unclear it may mean the apprehension of the entire composition is unclear. Using complex basic forms only disrupts the unity of the composer, who may or may not be involved in the production of very small works of music. This uncertainty is a kind of regular beat or pulse.
In what follows, I refer to the perception of all, including the composer. I use the word perception to mean the thinking is unclea...
"Pumper Wired Alambrada" For Solo Cello
Bil Smith Composer
A commission from ENI SpA
"Pumper Wired Alambrada" For Solo Cello The Score: 32" X 14" Bil Smith Composer A commission from ENI SpA Premie...
"Vibrating From The Shock Of The Blows"
For Ensemble
Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Trumpet, Trombone,
Percussion I and II, Violin I and II, Viola and Cello
Bil Smith Composer
2016
A Commissioned Work From BAE Systems
The Full Score (PDF File)
"Vibrating From The Shock Of The Blows" For Ensemble Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Percussion I an...
Preview of New Work for Oboe, Bass Clarinet, Trumpet, Trombone, Violin and Double Bass
"Flee, Like An Explosion Of Heaviness." The Full Score (PDF). For Piano, Thein Piccolo Trombone and Contraforte
The Contraforte from Benedikt Eppelsheim "Flee, Like An Explosion Of Heaviness." For Piano, Thein Piccolo Trombone and Co...
New York, NY
10013
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