Systèmes de Notation Embarqués. "Dyne Maximage and Taphephilia" for Viola and Piano

"Dyne Maximage and Taphephilia" for Viola and Piano

"Dyne Maximage and Taphephilia" for Viola and Piano. Bil Smith Composer.  (2003-2014)

Premiere: November 2, 2014.  The Norwood Club, New York, New York.  The performance underwritten by Thomson Reuters.  The commission for this work generously gifted from The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. 

Embedded Notational Systems require perceptual awareness even under conditions in which conscious perceptual information is available for the performer.  This concept of notation pursues composition averse to convention, standardization, and received forms, often prizing eccentricity, abrupt shifts of tone and the abnormal interpretation.  

The future horizon for the Embedded Notational System lies between imaginary poles: dissonance and ambiance: opacity and radical legibility; concept and aethesis, with the full force of the irony of these artifices and the artifice of these ironies. 

How do we as composers create a synthesis, a hybrid of our Theory and Contrast, to formulate an emergent set of instructions for constructing an electrate concept?

"Vicarious Causation" for Eva Kingma Quarter Tone Alto Flute

Excerpts from a String Quartet Tablature

String Quartet tablature.

In this piece, a legion of ontological possibilities that reside in this tablature system emerge in a series of slippages, but they are nevertheless constellated around a clear ethical question: "How can music, along with other human behaviors, from which it can not be separated, be the change it wants to be?"

'Le regole della musica non costituiscono una metafisica'

I Refer to the Perception of All, Including the Composer.

In what follows, I refer to the perception of all, including the composer. I use the word perception to mean the thinking is unclear. Even while writing these ideas there is a lack of clarity. The work seems to be ruined. Logic may be lost entirely. 

Again, if it has worked well for me while other ways have not, then perhaps it is not the most important aspect of the problem. After that the post-conceptual composer is free even to surprise himself. Ideas are discovered by intuition (or, more likely, accident). 

What is the work of notation? This kind of notation is for all composers. I have tried to state them with as much clarity as possible. 

If the statements I make are unclear it may mean the apprehension of the entire composition is unclear. Using complex basic forms only disrupts the unity of the composer, who may or may not be involved in the production of very small works of music. This uncertainty is a kind of regular beat or pulse. 

When the interval between things that can be is no longer important, the work becomes available to all composers and performers. I have found that it becomes the end while the form at the plate is directed at hitting the ball where it is pitched (so to speak). I am involved in post-conceptual composition as the idea or concept. This is the reason for using this method. 

Post-conceptual composition is made to engage the mind of the sense data, the objective of the listener rather than his ear or emotions. The physicality of a three-dimensional object then becomes a contradiction to its non-emotive intent. 

Color, surface, texture, and shape only emphasize the physical aspects of the work. 

When a composer uses a multiple modular method he usually chooses a simple form, repeatedly narrowing the field of the idea or concept. That is the reason for using this method. 

"Fader". For Alto Saxophone

"Magic of the Ancient Lunar Rainbows". For 13 violins

"Magic of the Ancient Lunar Rainbows" 

For 13 violins

Bil Smith Composer

Listen On SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/bil-smith/magic-of-the-ancient-lunar

In this piece I attempt to create a new topography in which the performers need to familiarize themselves with separating and combining, in new ways, the actions of the left and right hands.

My inspiration for this work: Haroldo de Campos’ ‘Galaxias’, Pino Pascali’s ‘Trap’, Mina Loy’s ‘Love songs’ and Thomas Ruff’s ‘Substrats’ and Sebastiano Timpanaro's theories of disimprovement and contextual play borrowed from the field of literary criticism.

This recording and performance made possible by a grant from Saint-Gobain S.A.

"Adamnian Steps" for Marimba.