"Sensual Perspectivisation... "Laboratorie New Music: Compositeur Abstraite"

Score "Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion".  Pages 38-39.
Pages are sliced in four equal parts representing each of the quartet members.

Laboratorie New Music.

http://www.laboratorienewmusic.com

Listen to the Music Here:

https://soundcloud.com/bil-smith

Score Page from "Thick Channel Black Bourbon" for Solo Voice

New Laboratorie New Music Article on "Medium"

https://medium.com/p/74b32f2dbce3

"Identical Intended Comments" for Contrabassoon and Soprano Saxophone

Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion for String Quartet.
Bil Smith Composer.
Invited Nomination Candidate for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music

Colophon (Performance Notes for "Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion"

Score "Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion".  Pages 38-39.
Pages are sliced in four equal parts representing each of the quartet members.

Matrix Plan for Publication.  "Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion"
Acetate Portable Overlay Tablature, 16 Ribbons (15 white, 1 pink)

Circular die cut into score with dice to determine sequence and
timing for each of the 16 sections.  The 16 sections are defined  by the white ribbons.

Score Pages: Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion

Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion

Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion.  Score pages 178-179

Explorer, Producer, Stoic, After Your Fashion.
 Page One of Colophon (Performance Notes)
with inference to Piero Manzoni to the right
(to be interpreted by the quartet with codicological structure

"Apparent Inscience of One Another's Project"
A cartographic circumfluent tablature constructed for two
instruments of converse provenance.

"Mysterious Eroticism of the Multi-Storied Car Park"
A Fanfare for Piccolo Trumpet in 'A'
Bil Smith Composer

"Delista" (Code Name) A new text score under construction
with the assistance of Siyang Lu

"Altoo" for Alto Flute and open for reinterpretation with different titles.  Whitespace.

Score Page (Loose Pages) from "Thick Channel Black Bourbon" for solo soprano

Undone
Scored for Six Isolated Instruments.
"Unlike the geometric eye of rationalized sight, which one can direct and focus at will, the physical eye, as we have seen,  (visual models are far too frequent and integral to permit so easy a dismissal) is one member of the body which does not always obey the will as it continually generates images and opacities on its own."

"Minatory Spectre for Alto Clarinet,  Alto Saxophone and Trombone

"Come Live With Me and Be My Love" 

a Circos Simulacrum of Censorship Project

"Semio": A Reappropriation of Mathias Spahlinger's "128 Erfüllte Augenblicke"  for Voice, Clarinet and Cello. Bil Smith Composer. (Page 99)

New Work: The Dynamic Spatialist Score

Paolo Scheggi's "Intersuperficie curva bianca"

With inspiration from Paolo Scheggi and Enrico Castellani, I began this commission for solo cello with the intent of pushing the boundaries of traditional notation into new dimensions.

I wanted to embrace investigations into the relationship between the surface and depth of the visual field and how it shapes the Cellist’s musical lexicon. In the physical score, I am introducing three monochromatic surfaces each perforated with biomorphic or geometric openings and layered one on top of the other.  Each surface plane measures 32” X 16”. 

The templates that follow represent the layers with the red outline being the bottom layer, the blue  being the middle layer and the black being the top layer.  The three layers are bound together with epoxy and represent a set.

The wide border surrounding the grid of apertures acts as a visual pause, giving the work a notable balance between the dynamism of the openings and the stillness of the balance of the layer.

Executed in a monochromatic white, I seek to present a combination of balance, tension and materiality.

This is simply the initial foundation for the work.  There will be further elements I will introduce as the work progresses.

Top Layer Die Cut Template

Middle Layer Die Cut Template

Bottom Layer Die Cut Template

 

"Seamless Opacity In Exchange For The Promise Of Transparency". For String Quartet. PDF Score

"Seamless Opacity In Exchange For The Promise Of Transparency"

For String Quartet

Bil Smith Composer

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByXT8veODB_TaWF3Y3ZXZHVZWjQ/view?usp=sharing

"Slipstream of Dust" For Solo Cello. Commentary from Michael Kwan

"Slipstream of Dust"

For Cello

Bil Smith Composer

Full Score Link to PDF Download

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1daFvtC_asXr-P3sycuwip3I4YtbknO6x/view?usp=sharing

In the post-modern era of music composition, Bil Smith has emerged as a vanguard of avant-garde musical experimentation. His latest composition, "Slipstream of Dust" for cello, challenges the traditional music notation system and offers a new perspective on musical interpretation.

Using an unconventional notation system, Smith's composition aims to convey the ephemeral nature of dust particles, often disregarded as trivial and insignificant. The cello serves as a conduit for this existential message, its melancholic notes weaving a web of intricate melodies that evoke a sense of introspection and contemplation.

The piece's structure is reminiscent of the stream-of-consciousness technique employed in literature, with the cello serving as the protagonist's inner voice, meandering through the different stages of grief, from denial to acceptance. The sparse use of silence in the composition is a nod to the philosophy of absence, emphasizing the importance of what is not said, rather than what is.

"Slipstream of Dust" challenges the binary oppositions of traditional music notation systems, destabilizing the boundaries between the composer, performer, and listener. By rejecting the hegemonic power of traditional notation, Smith's composition allows for a multiplicity of interpretations and a decentralization of power. The performer becomes a co-creator, reconfiguring the composition with each performance, blurring the distinction between author and reader.

The very existence of "Slipstream of Dust" is predicated on the absence of sound. The silence that permeates the piece is not a void, but a space that invites interpretation and imagination. The composition is haunted by the traces of sound that exist between the notes, echoing the specter of what could have been. In this way, Smith's composition embodies the Derridean notion of différance, where meaning is not fixed, but is constantly deferred and postponed.

The unconventional notation destabilizes the notion of a fixed musical language. By utilizing symbols and markings that are unique to this composition, Smith is creating a language that is fluid and constantly evolving. This disrupts the notion of a musical canon, emphasizing the contingency and temporality of all cultural products.

In conclusion, Bil Smith's "Slipstream of Dust" is a subversive musical composition that challenges the binaries and hierarchies that dominate traditional notation systems. By destabilizing the notion of a fixed musical language, Smith creates a space for multiplicity, interpretation, and imagination. The composition is not a static entity, but a dynamic process that is continually evolving, echoing the Derridean notion of différance.

-Michael Kwan for The Guardian

"Cast Poetics" for Solo Cello. Bil Smith Composer.

"Cast Poetics" 

for Solo Cello.  

Bil Smith Composer.

Link to PDF Score File (Hi-Res)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/131pybkiB2U6R6VRQj_Nf_i7XgQsNcGcp/view?usp=sharing

I’m intrigued by this notion of surprise and sudden change in sound; so that one state of something could change into something totally different at times during the piece, and there would be no apparent connection from the process that manifests one sonic structure to the next one. 

I was working on this composition, which had this very direct, maybe literal, idea of a pseudo-sonification of turbulent equations as the source of sound. 

Nonetheless, many pieces I have been working on don’t have such a literal relation of using nonlinear functions to synthesize certain sounds. Rather than the idea of making a sound directly ‘out of’ chaos, I was interested in how it could be used to explore this notion of surprise and abrupt change: to bring this acute dynamic form into the piece.

"Surfaces For Inscription". For String Quartet. The Full PDF Score

"Surfaces For Inscription"

 For String Quartet

Bil Smith Composer

A Commission from Royal Mail PLC

Published on LNM Editions

Link To The Full PDF Score

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZrnuLR-loZdBMC-RrO9gv4Gg7p15w6MZ/view?usp=sharing

In the exploration of "Surfaces For Inscription" for String Quartet, crafted with a paratonal notation system, the performers delve into the intricate play between power, knowledge, and the aesthetics of musical discourse. This piece, a convergence of symbols and sounds, becomes a fertile ground for the analysis of how musical texts govern the practices of interpretation and performance, shaping the very ontology of music itself.

The notation system, with its diminutive inscriptions, surrenders to the minuscule, thereby challenging our habitual desire to apprehend the work in its entirety. This act of reading, an exercise in disciplinary power, constrains the quartet within a framework of detailed scrutiny that paradoxically limits the comprehension of the piece's holistic essence.

This limitation is not a mere oversight but a deliberate strategy that engages the performer and the audience in a complex play of visibility and invisibility. By necessitating a choice between the granular and the gestalt, the notation system enacts a form of control, directing the attention and thereby the interpretative practices of its beholders. It becomes a panopticon of sorts, where the observed - the notation - exerts a reverse surveillance, dictating the terms of its own visibility.

The banishment of quasi-atmospheric modulations, produced by the abundance of vertical runoffs, represents not merely a technical innovation but a radical reconfiguration of the musical landscape. These vertical runoffs, rather than arresting the motion of the notation, magnify the dynamism inherent in the paratonal system. This is a metaphor for the relation between power and resistance, where the apparent constraints of the notation system serve not to freeze but to catalyze the gestural potential of the music.

The thick pools of notation, corresponding point by point to the musical structure, create a discursive field where meanings are constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed, always within the bounds of the system's logic.

"Hardly" for Cello

A Reformulation of Brian Ferneyhough's String Quartet Number Six (excerpt)

A Reformulation of Brian Ferneyhough's String Quartet Number Six 

(excerpts)

Bil Smith: Reformulator