"Quadrantaria" for Harp, Cello, English Horn and Tuba. The Score

Quadrantaria (substrate transparency) Score Excerpt

"Quadrantaria" for Harp, Cello, English Horn and Tuba. Bil Smith Composer, 2013. 

World Premiere: Rooftop Terrace, 144 Duane Street, New York, NY. 

August 11, 2013. Underwritten and Commissioned by Interpublic Group and The Emilie Thorne Trust.

Quadrantaria Score Detail

Quadrantaria Score Detail

Quadrantaria Score Detail

The Unco-Operative Camera". For Clarinet in A

"The Unco-Operative Camera"

For Clarinet in A

Bil Smith Composer

"Crater 34" For Soprano Voice A WET (Words, Events and Text) Score

"Crater 34"

For Soprano Voice

A WET (Words, Events and Text) Score

Commissioned by BNP Paribas

For the opening of the BNP Paribas Open

Indian Wells, CA

March, 2016

The Single Page Score and The Erosion of Conventional Structures

In the labyrinth of musical notation, a striking departure from tradition emerges—the single page score. This paradigm-shattering artifact disrupts the established tablature notation hierarchy. A solo page allows us to embark on an exploration of the merits that lie within this enigmatic creation, peeling back the layers of convention to reveal its audacious allure.

The Erosion of Conventional Structures:

Within the single page score, the traditional scaffolding of musical notation crumbles, allowing for a radical reimagining of artistic expression. Here, the composer navigates uncharted territories, transgressing the boundaries of conventional form. Lines and staves converge, intersect, and entwine, evoking a sense of disorientation that fuels the artistic quest for new sonic realms.

The Absence as Aesthetic Substance:

In the voids and white spaces that permeate the single page score, we encounter an aesthetic substance like no other. The absence of notes and symbols becomes a silent protagonist, engaging in a dialogue of negation and suggestion. Through this calculated negation, the composer invites the performer and listener to actively participate in the act of musical creation, filling the silence with their own interpretive echoes.

Frragments of musical ideas collide and intertwine, creating a captivating collage of sonic possibilities. Disconnected motifs, disjointed rhythms, and fragmented melodies meld together in a tapestry of ambiguity. The listener becomes an archeologist, piecing together fragments to reconstruct the composer's intention, unveiling hidden narratives in the process.

The Cinematic Spatiotemporal Realm:

The single page score also transcends the static realm of traditional notation, transforming into a dynamic spatiotemporal canvas. Musical events unfold in a cinematographic manner, as if the score were a storyboard for an avant-garde film. Time becomes elastic, stretching and compressing at the composer's will, challenging the listener to navigate a non-linear sonic narrative.

Additionally, within the solo page lies a game of interpretive uncertainty, where the performer becomes a player in a complex musical puzzle. Ambiguous directions and cryptic notations provoke a sense of interpretive vertigo, blurring the boundaries between composer and performer. Each rendition becomes a unique artistic act, imbued with the performer's personal interpretation and interwoven with the uncertainties of the score.

As established structures erode, the absence becomes an aesthetic substance, and fragments coalesce into a collage of sonic possibilities. The spatiotemporal realm unfolds like a cinematic experience, and interpretive uncertainty becomes a captivating game. Let us embrace this daring departure from tradition, for within the single page score lies the potential for musical exploration and liberation.

"If You Find Her Reemergence Strange" for B Flat Trumpet. Bil Smith Composer

                                      

"If You Find Her Reemergence Strange" 

for B Flat Trumpet

2023

Bil Smith Composer

Published by LNM Editions

Link To PDF Score

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pInyEOM5hvgaxZRJh0Wi1PiFSqpb3om_/view?usp=sharing

This epicyclic tablature consists of a musical notation system that uses epicycles, which are mathematical curves generated by the motion of a small circle inside a larger circle, to represent various elements of music. This type of notation system is designed to convey complex musical structures in a visually intuitive and accessible way. 

In epicyclic music notation, each epicycle represents a specific musical element, such as pitch, rhythm, or dynamics. The size, orientation, and movement of the epicycle are used to convey information about the specific characteristics of the note or sound, such as its duration, amplitude, or frequency. 

The impact of epicyclic music notation on the performer can vary depending on their experience with the system. For performers who are familiar with experimental notation systems, epicyclic  notation may be seen as a creative and expressive way of projecting and interpreting the score, allowing for greater flexibility and creative exploration in performance. 

"Placid Hosts" for Bass Clarinet. Bil Smith Composer.

"Placid Hosts" 

for Bass Clarinet/Actor/Interrogator.  

Bil Smith Composer. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rrl7ExwoD9MwARM2KU0QHJTFp5MZsfuy/view?usp=sharing 

This work focuses on unmasking how notational nomenclature is marshaled into the service of power, from political rhetoric and demagogy to psychological persuasion.   

The Bass Clarinetist is responsible for a multiplicity of roles in this performance.

"Placid Hosts" is accompanied by a four-channel video installation based on an interview transcript from a 2014 murder investigation in the United States in which a woman was suspected of killing her husband with a Christian Louboutin stiletto heel DegraSpike Patent Red Sole Pump.

Similar to the way an interrogation room generates a power dynamic and tension from the moment a person steps inside, the layout of the installation is designed to maximize viewers’ discomfort.

Upon entering the piece, listeners hear a harsh and incessant pulsating sound composition, which is synchronized with the interview dialogue projected on two screens in blinding optic white text on vermillion backgrounds. 

One screen features the police officers’ vexatious questions, the other the answers of the suspect. The authorities use interrogation tactics such as psychological manipulation, confrontation, and even empathy in order to gain trust and obtain a confession, hence the Bass Clarinetist is incarcerated, reformed or a fugitive.

Throughout, the accused person’s responses read as overwhelmed, as if they are unable or perhaps unwilling to remember or articulate their thoughts. Delays in replying translate into bursts of cadmium yellow, channel black, or optic white flashes on the screens, accompanied by the no less irritating buzzing of the processed live performance of the bass clarinetist. 

The persuasiveness of this work relies on the listener's exposure to constant noise and flashes of light—which are not coincidentally methods also used for “enhanced interrogation”—leaving one with a strong sense of stress, suggestibility, and vulnerability. 

This is a visceral experience of the exercise of compositional language as a coercive power, as if one’s self were the very same subject of inquisition.

"Mirador". A Fanfare for B Flat Trumpet

"Paranoic Narratology" for Bass Clarinet. Bil Smith Composer

 

"Paranoic Narratology"

for Bass Clarinet

Bil Smith Composer

Published by LNM Editions

Link to Full Score PDF:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fwyxo-pyy60QbkDc3KQPR9UAbfPKetFJ/view?usp=sharing

PDF Link to Full Score: "A Sullen And Truculent Citizen." For Chamber Orchestra.

"A Sullen And Truculent Citizen."  

For Chamber Orchestra 

Bil Smith Composer

Commissioned by Banca MPS

The Complete Score: PDF (113 pages)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5lqYq0XwE76eFR5c0FZRkZIejQ/view?usp=sharing

In "A Sullen And Truculent Citizen," scored for Chamber Orchestra, one finds a notational system that can be said to mirror the very unconscious structuring itself, operating within a Lacanian framework of the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real. The score utilizes a Gallifreyan representational framework interwoven with traditional notational elements, a juxtaposition that destabilizes as much as it defines, allowing for a spiraling set of associations whose burgeoning intractability speaks to the heart of the ineffable in music.

The Gallifreyan constructs, circular and enigmatic, become the locus of the imaginary, seducing the interpreter with their cryptic allure, their promise of meanings perpetually deferred. Here, in these arcane symbols, the score engenders a multiplicity of potentialities, inviting a hermeneutic engagement that simultaneously reveals and conceals the musical intentions. It is in this space that the score "feels suspended"—a concept of the suspended motif that captures the essence of the human condition, hanging between signifier and signified, perpetually in motion.

The musicians, caught in the gravitational pull of this notational behemoth, navigate a minefield of meaning where the paradox of precision and ambiguity reigns supreme. Every performance becomes an act of de-coding, a futile attempt to find a Rosetta Stone for a language that morphs with every glance.

The result is a notational dispositif that oscillates between the familiar and the unknown, creating a dialectic that invites and disavows meaning in equal measure.

"Loosen The Bandage" for Piano

"I Think I Am Rich". For Tuba and James Trussart Steel Deville Electric Guitar

 

"I Think I Am Rich". For Tuba and James Trussart Steel Deville Electric Guitar

Tranche Notation

The Tranche Notation System

This hyper-complex system incorporates color elements within a zeta-code, while subtly borrowing from the transformative Circos visualization algorithm. Within its labyrinthine design, the Tranche Notation System ushers composers and performers alike into uncharted territory of chromatic narratives and interpretative possibilities.

Coloring the Soundscape: The Zeta-Code Revelation

As if excavated from the depths of a surreal dream, the Tranche Notation System introduces a zeta-code, where musical elements are expressed through a kaleidoscope of colors. This dynamic fusion of visual and auditory sensations shatters the confines of traditional black-and-white musical notation. Like a painter's brush on a blank canvas, the Tranche Notation System allows composers to sculpt their soundscapes with unparalleled freedom, invoking a symphony of chromatic intricacies.

Drawing inspiration from Castellani's mastery of surface and depth, the Tranche Notation System becomes a canvas of unseen depths conveying a fascination with mortality and transformation, inviting performers to traverse a surreal landscape of musical imagery. Much like Castellani's "Superficie Bianca," the notation surface remains deceptively serene, concealing a complex network of colors, visual testaments, discordant lines, and tactile impressions. With each note, a new dimension unfolds.

The Circos Veil: A Transformational Visualization

At the heart of the Tranche Notation System lies an enigmatic secret - the subtle appropriation of the transformative Circos visualization algorithm. Beneath the surface on this compositional archetype lies a Lacanian void, representing a realm of boundless possibilities. This borrowing from Circos serves as a catalyst for transformative potential, offering composers a myriad of options for representing complex musical structures. It further challenges the traditional perception of musical notation as merely linear, unveiling a multidimensional vista of interpretative layers.

Hyper-Complexity: Unlocking the Notational Enigma

Composers embark on a cryptic journey, akin to deciphering an elusive riddle, as they navigate the labyrinth of colors, zeta-codes, and visual arcs. Within this intricate web of signifiers, each shade, line, and curve intertwines with musical meaning.  

Inquiries into ideology resonate as ideology obscures underlying truths allowing for an unmediated encounter with score. By challenging the normative musical conventions, this notation system liberates the performative subjectivity.

The Tranche Notation System captures the ephemeral nature of sound through dynamic symbols in motion. Each musical gesture becomes an artistic alchemy, evoking metamorphosis and renewal. 

"Cartoon Lucination Imposes Claims" for Harp and Celeste. PDF Link To Full Score.

"Cartoon Lucination Imposes Claims" 

For Harp and Celeste

Bil Smith Composer

Commissioned by Alps Electronics

PDF Score:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByXT8veODB_TMHR5dGRXSFdxR00/view?usp=sharing

"Clear Evidence of Continued Recovery" 2013. Bil Smith Composer

"Clear Evidence of Continued Recovery"

Bil Smith Composer

Commissioned by Glencore PLC