Work In Progress - Oct 2026

 

The Jubal Project and Metabolist Composition

First Installment of "The Jubal Project" can be found here:

http://soundmorphology.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-jubal-project.html

Metabolism is a term used in music to describe a philosophy and approach to composition that emphasizes the idea that music is a living, dynamic entity that is constantly evolving and changing over time. Metabolism is often associated with a group of Japanese composers who were active in the 1960s and 1970s, known as the "Metabolists" or the "Group of Four". 

According to this philosophy, the music score is not a fixed, static entity, but rather a starting point for a musical work that is continually evolving and changing through the performance and interpretation of the musicians. In other words, the score is seen as a kind of "blueprint" for the music, rather than a finished product. 

Metabolist composers often employ techniques such as indeterminacy, improvisation, and aleatory (chance) elements in their music, in order to create a sense of spontaneity and unpredictability. They also emphasize the use of technology and electronic instruments, such as synthesizers and computers, to create new sounds and textures. 

Overall, the philosophy of metabolism is a rejection of the idea of music as a fixed, unchanging object, and an embrace of music as a dynamic and ever-evolving art form. 

In this compositional notation system (archetype), the performer is charged with adapting patterns to fluctuating desires and contingencies which can be an ongoing process with the performance becoming a method of directing change in the musical interpretation; a way of guiding them through different configurations. This relies on making and using patterns found within the notation that are more responsive than their modernist predecessors.

Visual Coherence  

 

The patterns found within this new notational system are first and foremost visual ones.  They are intended to provide the performer’s interpretation with aesthetic clarity despite differences in individual components.  Visual attributes are always present and recognizable, so a base pattern’s identity remains separate yet linked to the sonic forces that shape it.

Because of its internal consistency, a pattern produces gestalts that allow the performer to recognize and understand otherwise overwhelmingly complex visualizations. 

"Arculon" for Inderbinen "Tricky" Four Valve B Flat Trumpet

 

"Arculon" For Inderbinen "Tricky" Four Valve  B Flat Trumpet

Bil Smith Composer

2022

Published by LNM Editions

Link to Hi-Res PDF Score

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X_3r_TXn0qKg7TRmnvbEtF4gmg4u51wl/view?usp=sharing

"Vibrave" for Guitar. Bil Smith Composer

 

New Work For Vibraphone Inspired By John Baldessari. (Page 3 of 15)

New Work Inspired By John Baldessari

For Vibraphone

Bil Smith Composer

Published by LNM Editions

Person on Bed (Blue): With Large Shadow (Orange) and Lamp (Green), 2004. Three dimensional archival print with acrylic paint. 213×191 cm. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery, New York / London / Paris.  John Baldessari

John Baldessari - National City (W), 1996-2009. Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (Left) / John Baldessari - National City (4), 1996-2009. Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (Right). 

"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

Neo-Conceptualism and Notational Syntax: "Luxtrapathy, Capitalocene, and the Logicade" for Trumpet and Cello

Rooted in the roiling undercurrents of neo-conceptualism, this work dares to be manifesto and riddle, a dense, sonic palimpsest whose aesthetics spiral into a ceaseless interplay with semiotics and ideology, calling forth a polyphony of discourse. Here, at the juncture where conceptual art marries the serpentine tendrils of post-structuralist thought and music's restless innovation, the piece asserts itself as an excavation.  It is a layered exploration into the shadowy caverns of signification. What does music mean? And beyond that, what does meaning, in its unsteady teetering, mean?

Aesthetic Framework and Methodology

Is the score a site? A map? A battlefield?  It is forged through installations of cool restraint, their affective charge concealed beneath the rigor of their form. Across both the monumental and the diminutive, these works reproduce texts with a precision that feels at once obsessive and detached. These fragments, pulled from psychoanalysis, communication theory, political science, jurisprudence, and economics, become something akin to artifacts in a reliquary. Yet, unlike static relics, they breathe, hum, and resonate, weaving themselves into the contrapuntal fabric of the musical narrative. The score does not simply use text; it inhabits it, inhabiting the contradiction of being at once a musical object and a critical aperture.

Visually, the score pulsates with an almost unbearable saturation.  Colors bleed, fragments clash, the whole shimmering as if on the verge of disintegration. This oversaturation is no mere flourish; it is the work's refusal of dogma, a deliberate counterpoint to the rigidity of traditional musical texts. Every note, every mark on the page, exposes the fissures within the system of musical notation itself. Universality becomes a fiction laid bare, its incompleteness revealed. This is not a document that demands to be played; it is a demand to be thought. To wrestle with the impossibility of its completeness is to participate in the work’s reimagining of what musical and intellectual creation can be.

Here lies not resolution but aperture: a gleaming, jagged invitation to thought and sound. What emerges is not music as we know it, but music as a question, endlessly refracting.

Aesthetic Framework and Methodology

The score is crafted through sober installations characterized by a consistent style. It comprises both small and large-format works where fragments of texts are meticulously reproduced. These texts draw on disciplines such as psychoanalysis, communication theory, political science, jurisprudence, and economics, weaving them into the fabric of the musical narrative. The use of text within the score underscores its dual function as both a musical artifact and a site of critical inquiry.

The visual and notational elements of the score reflect an oversaturation of color and meticulously arranged fragments. This aesthetic strategy not only enhances its visual impact but also serves as a counter-illustration to traditional dogmatic musical texts. The resulting work challenges the universality of musical notation, revealing its inherent incompleteness and opening up new spaces for thought and interpretation.

Neo-Conceptualism and Notational Syntax

The score's neo-conceptualist foundation addresses the ideological constructs embedded in systems of notation and their corresponding semiotic frameworks. By deconstructing these systems, I create a counter-linguistic critique that highlights the essential limitations of musical notation as a universal language.

This critique is supplemented by the juxtaposition of iconic and notational rules, allowing for reciprocal transfers of meaning between aesthetic and semantic information. The resulting "literal" intersection is where the work finds its core: a space where meaning is not purged nor confined to referentiality but exists in a dynamic exchange of iconic and linguistic structures.