Part Two: Provocations From The Composers of Laboratorie New Music

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"Warred". Bil Smith Composer

"Flight Risk". For Piano.

Part Five: Provocations From The Composers of Laboratorie New Music

"Different Phenomena..." For Orchestra, Guitar, Mezzo-Soprano, Alpha Spheres, and Audio Cubes

"Different Phenomena; The Luminous Dragon-Green Sea" (2014) Bil Smith Composer.

LISTEN: https://soundcloud.com/bil-smith/different-phenomena-the

For Orchestra, Guitar, Mezzo-Soprano, Alpha Spheres, and Audio Cubes

Compositional structure based on W.V.O. Quine's theories of Holophrastic indeterminacy, or "indeterminacy of musical performance translation". This is one of two kinds of indeterminacy of performance interpretation to appear in his writings.

According to Quine, "there is more than one correct method of interpreting (translating) notations where the two interpreters differ not merely in the meanings attributed to the sub-sentential parts of sounds but also in the net import of the whole composition.

It is holophrastic indeterminacy (Cage) that underlies Quine's argument against synonymy, the basis of his objections to Rudolf Carnap's analytic/synthetic distinction.

The Iconic Robert Ashley on "Condensation of Chromium Culture"

From the late Robert Ashley -

"This work of Smith's is a behemoth; this a music engulfed in a torrent of noisy, yet partially restored, small transformations. 

Perhaps I can evoke the appropriate sense of quizzical reaction as follows. Mathematicians may conceivably be said to be somewhat rational and not necessarily two-legged, and cyclists necessarily two-legged and not rational. 

But what of an individual that counts his eccentricities both mathematics and cycling? A small digression, but poignant all the same if you are able to withstand the duration of this work. 

Spherical, elongated and a spectacle of musical geometry. Time invested wisely."

-Robert Ashley

Recording on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/bil-smith/condensation-of-chromium-1

PolyTenor. A Large Format Score for Piano {Four Hands}

PolyTenor

Score Detail A,09

Score Detail Bi(8)

22.+

Interre 8

Veeste  .-9

Nomina Se                         @7

OP-08

Flute Etude

Here's An Idea.

Here's an idea...

Let us say I wake up one day and find myself in a world with a collective brain and mouth.

The brain feeds directly into the mouth. Through this mouth—anonymously or not—I can compose or write anything I want.

I can tell the truth to power, or I can lie to the weak.

I can post doctored photographs of you doing unspeakable things. You can do the same.

We can see and hear it all.

Pretty much any opinion or act or accusation we want to share with one another, we can, with the exception of a few things that might, after a very long time, catch the attention of the authorities.

But let us say that until the invention of this worldwide web of expression, I’d been like that child, and believed there would be consequences if I thought or said certain things.

And now there are none.

Let’s go a step further and say that I had been, before this web was woven, a composer or lover of composition, and that I’d believed that there was something composers needed to rebel against, or witness, or (even silently or obscurely) to protest…

Well, now what?

It’s always been the case, naturally, that there were plenty of horrors and injustices taking place on any block in any town in this world.

Of course, these were often not nearly as exotic for the purposes of composition as the horrors outside our borders—or so we thought.

But, now, no human needs to be drafted and sent to war or awarded a Guggenheim to witness massacres, stonings, beheadings.

There’s an app for that.

Google Images: “body parts” “starvation” “torture.”

There’s a multi-page Reddit thread devoted entirely to expressions of regret about having watched the video of Daniel Pearl’s beheading.

All these years later, people are still posting about having seen it, complaining that they can’t sleep.

About “witness,” many of these posters have come to the website to warn others not to.

Don’t witness. No good will come from it.

But I can watch anything I want. I can say anything I want. I can publish any composition I craft on the internet any time I want.

I can compose within some tradition (however I wish to define it), or I can compose in defiance of any tradition.

I can consider my audience or spit in its eye.

Just try to stop me.

"Less" for Orchestra and Three Ensembles (2011-2013)

"Less" for Orchestra and Three Ensembles (2011-2013) 

Bil Smith Composer

Orchestra and Three Ensembles consisting of the same orchestration: Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Flute, Piano and Glockenspiel; Chronotope Chain Drum, Helicline Euphonium (Amplified), Prosthetic Piccolo in D flat, and Quarter Tone Crotales.

"Convincing and Convicted. The location of conventional acoustic instruments within a self arranging digital framework produces moments of creeping insectoid menace that recede to intervals of pastoral reverie. Smith deserves kudos for recognizing both the capacity of technology to create and direct, and the importance of the acoustical human element."

- Brian Marley

Recording available for a Limited time on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/bil-smith/less-for-orchestra-and-three

"Your Superego"

"Diametra" For Oboe.

"Memory Foam". For Organist and Robespierre Technician. Bil Smith Composer.

"Memory Foam".  For Organist and  Robespierre Technician.  Bil Smith Composer.  With Santo Tollone.

New Work.  Commissioned by Kean Etro, Chief Creative Officer and Director of Etro.  Premiere on the occasion of Milan Fashion Week, 2015.