Saturday, October 31, 2015

And No One Yet Knows What 'Non-Composition' Can or Cannot Do.


"Fundamental Overture" 

Bil Smith Composer
LISTEN on SoundCloud:

Performativity is the hallmark of thinking in accordance with immanence.


Agree?: {Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof}


It provides the cri­terion for an important contrast between the self­ sufficient or musical practice of composition and its empirical activity whose claim to theoretical legitimacy is only ever assured through its perform­ance.


{I know that I'm carrying on, never mind if I'm showing off...I was just frontin'}.


It may be that this Fundamental Overture's crisp, sharply delineated mode of abstraction turns out to be far more concrete than those nebulous abstractions which composers try to pass off as instances of concretion.


Agree?: {Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do }


In other words, the criteria for evaluating the worth of 'Non-Compositional'­ function are not available to composers, who know not what they do.


In 'Non-Composition', radical axiomatic abstraction gives rise, not to a system or doctrine inviting assent or dissent, but to an immanent methodology whose function for music no one is in a position to evaluate as yet.


{Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth}


Ultimately, then, 'Non-Composition' can only be gauged in terms of what it can do.


And no one yet knows what 'Non-Composition' can or cannot do.


Clap+
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Monday, October 26, 2015

Back to School? The Recording: "Being Forced to Drop Out"





                                                                    
 "Being Forced To Drop Out"

Click Here to Listen on SoundCloud 



A Work Commissioned by InterPublic Group (IPG) for piano, 
modified piano, toy piano, piano annointe, and tape.

"Bil Smith's work was ultimately an investigation into the essence of modern life, distilled through notions of synchronicity and dynamism. At the heart of his synaesthetic credo, sound is an aspect of the vibrational continuum; hence no difference is made between music and noise emanating from the intonarumori.
He (Smith) relentlessly cross-references sources, suggests unexpected associations and unearths exceptional archival material."
- Olga Bloom, Founder of Barge Music


Saturday, October 10, 2015

"A Xen (Zen) Gallery : Visualizing Xenakis"


Clichès Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Pithoprakta



Iannis Xenakis, Study for Metastaseis, 1954

Xenakis "Sketch Book"












"Polytopes Concept Sketch"












"The Curve"








Xenakis Sketch Book




Study for Metastaseis




"Polytope de Montreal"



Xenakis' "Polytope"




Being Forced To Drop Out



"Being Forced to Drop Out" (2010-2013)
Bil Smith Composer
A Work Commissioned by InterPublic Group (IPG) for piano, modified piano, toy piano, piano annointe, and tape.
"Bil Smith's work was ultimately an investigation into the essence of modern life, distilled through notions of synchronicity and dynamism. At the heart of his synaesthetic credo, sound is an aspect of the vibrational continuum; hence no difference is made between music and noise emanating from the intonarumori.
He (Smith) relentlessly cross-references sources, suggests unexpected associations and unearths exceptional archival material."
- Olga Bloom, Founder of Barge Music

Friday, October 9, 2015

Shouting?



Transparency.  I am writing transparently.  Richard Barrett owns the notes...all of the notes.

How I use choose notation systems is supposed to be invisible to you so that you can follow what I am composing.

If instead, I was to compose in the equivalent of ALL CAPS, I move to the material or oblique.

You would first notice the way it looked, then --- noting that CAPS generally connote SHOUTING --- it's tone, and last, it's message.  

In day-to-day life we rarely notice the material properties of composition and music except for when, say, we encounter a 'stutter' or a music with a heavy accent towards the unknown.

We first notice how this music is presented, second we decode what we are hearing.

When we listen to an opera in a language we do not understand, we push language's formal properties to the front -- its cadences and rhythms---choosing sound over sense.

If we further choose to invert the transparency of notation, we can hear the sounds or see them as shapes.

Bil





Thursday, October 8, 2015

“Partitions: Cambics Alive in Sensient Amplules” Recording by the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project

“Partitions: Cambics Alive in Sensient Amplules”
for String Quartet, Flute, Vibraphone and Bass. Bil Smith Composer.

Score length: 5900+Pages.



The performance ensemble Chicago Modern Orchestra Project (CMOP), led by Renee Baker, is a definitive statement of the ‘next music’, embracing elements of radical improvisational techniques with the precision and acuity of the finest new music classical practitioners in the world. 




To learn more about this work and performance, please visit the expanded article on Medium.


The Recording on Soundcloud:



Additional Images from the score: