"Mimetized Disasters, Dan Quayle And His Evangelist Wife In A Hotel Room". The Score and Transparencies

"Mimetized Disasters, Dan Quayle And His Evangelist Wife In A Hotel Room". Page One

"Mimetized Disasters, Dan Quayle And His Evangelist Wife In A Hotel Room". 

Instrumentation:

Euphonium

Piccolo Saxophone

(Eppelsheim - Soprillo)

Contraforte

(Eppelsheim-Wolf)

Dynoresonant 

B Flat Trumpet

The Score and Transparencies

Bil Smith Composer

A Commission from Time Warner

"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

Hyper- Appropriation:

The (The) inevitable violation.  A perfect conversion of the objective sum and a precise allusion.

Transparency One

Transparency

"Good Days and Their Extremity" for Oboe, Bass Clarinet, Trumpet, Trombone, Violin and Double Bass

 "Good Days and Their Extremity" 

for Oboe, Bass Clarinet, Trumpet, Trombone, Violin and Double Bass

Bil Smith Composer

Commissioned by Univar

Link to Full Score (PDF):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zf4vt5IBmPYf8S0jX_gCRlFd4Ag1q8I8/view?usp=sharing

The Conceptualization of Uncertain Compositional Devices is an Enduring One.

The conceptualization of uncertain compositional devices, understood as a set of possibilities, each assigned a specific notational value—a schema for performance that draws its origin from the very circumstances that gave rise to it, namely the game of chance, the die, and its faces—retains a lasting hold on our thinking about music and its indeterminate forms. This notion, which locates the act of composition within the dynamics of chance, operates not merely as a technical device but as a profound framework for understanding the engagement between contingency and intention.

In the realm of indeterminate composition, the 'occasional cause'—that is, the metaphysical spontaneity of the performer or gambler—continues to assert an intuitive grip on how we conceive of uncertain eventualities. It shapes both the interpretation and application of musical events across varied contexts. The performer's role, caught in the uncertainty of each moment, mirrors a broader existential engagement with the unknown, one that colors the relationship between agency and outcome.

However, stripped of these metaphysical associations, the meaning of composition remains as elusive as ever. Is composition an idealized construct, one that neutralizes the unpredictable through the abstraction of infinite possible trials? Or does it represent a real property of the world, a genuine propensity or random generator that functions independently of the human mind’s interpretative frameworks? This question points to the fundamental enigma of how we understand the role of contingency in artistic creation.

As composers, we dramatize this tension in the asymmetry between the wager and its outcome. On the one hand, we have the naive performer—analogous to the ordinary gambler—who approaches each roll of the die as a singular, hazardous adventure. Each note, each moment, is fraught with uncertainty. On the other hand, the composer assumes the role of the casino manager, who controls the overarching structure and never truly loses. The composer's position in the long game assures mastery over the risk inherent in each individual gamble, rendering the short-term fluctuations irrelevant to the final outcome.

Yet, what emerges from this dialectic is a deeper philosophical tension between the notion of chance as an epistemological deficit—something we confront because of our limited knowledge—and the idea of chance as an object of technical mastery, as a domain that can be quantified, predicted, and controlled. The notion of probability, and more recently, risk, provides a conceptual apparatus for this engagement. While the concept of risk may appear as a relatively modern invention, it carries with it far-reaching implications, not just for contemporary compositional techniques but for the entire intellectual framework within which we approach uncertainty in modernity.

Thus, the compositional process becomes a negotiation between two seemingly opposed conceptions: the performer's intimate, momentary engagement with chance and the composer's detached, overarching control of the totality. In this interplay, we find not just the logic of musical creation, but an enduring metaphor for how we, as human agents, confront the uncertainties of existence itself.

The Post-Conceptual Composer and Institutional Composition

The work of the post-conceptual composer is a contradiction intended to surprise both the listener and infinity. Ideas are the way a listener will refer to this surprise. The composer will state the idea as ludicrously infinite. 

Successful completions generally have been found to mitigate infinity. I predict we will see one such mitigation via Institutional Composition. This is a newly minted term meant to function as a post-conceptual commentary on infinity as well as the various institutions and assumed normalities of composing and/or a radical disarticulation of the institution of composition (radical is notationally understood in its relation to radix which means to get to the root of something). 

For instance, assumptions about the supposed aesthetic autonomy or neutrality of science fiction and fantasy are often explored as a subject in the field of literature, and are then historically and socially mapped out (i.e., ethnographically and or archaeologically) as discursive formations, then (re)framed within the context of The Infinite Library itself. 

As such, Institutional Composition seeks to make visible the historically and socially constructed boundaries between inside and outside, public and private.  Institutional Composition is often critical of the false separations often made between distinctions of taste and supposedly disinterested aesthetic judgment, and affirms that taste is an institutionally cultivated sensibility that may tend to differ according to the class, ethnic, sexual and gender backgrounds of music's audiences. 

The resulting work is meant to sound good. Sometimes the work suggests the form of the composer. I am grateful for the way a score presents itself as an autobiographical product of its creator and his/her place in the infinite. And yet, I have found this gratefulness tends to go awry in expressionist composition. 

It looks better when the score may more easily become a metric time element, a kind of objective tool that is an intrinsic part of the composer who is out to avoid subjectivity. This type of work is free even to be a belief, something that shows the size of a metric time element as representative of a belief.  The composition is representative of that belief.

"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)