"Covenial Lathe Abounds" for Flute. Bil Smith Composer

"Covenial Lathe Abounds" 

for Flute 

Bil Smith Composer

Commissioned by Gazprom

Published by LNM Editions

PDF File Link To Full Score

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wL3oIyO7caDzxR-J-pRA7ULEbmAUmJ76/view?usp=sharing

"BonnGasse Twenty" For Solo Piano (Susanne Kessell's Beethoven Project)

"BonnGasse Twenty"

For Solo Piano

Part of Susanne Kessell's 250 Piano Pieces for Beethoven Project

Bil Smith Composer

"Making The Peterhead Heel A Little Under The Weight" For Bass Clarinet

 

"Making The Peterhead Heel A Little Under The Weight" 

For Bass Clarinet

Bil Smith Composer

Link To Hi-Res PDF Score

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AIPF8cmt2DMaeL2y8l7uHoznyZ0XL2je/view?usp=sharing

"Odean Semafore's Taphephilia" for Chamber Ensemble. The Score.

"Odean Semafore's Taphephilia" 

for Chamber Ensemble. 

Bil Smith Composer

2015

A Commission from De Beers Consolidated 

(inclusive of the procurement of the ensemble instruments)

Chamber Ensemble Consisting Of:

Thomas Inderbinen 'Sera' Flugelhorn

Eva Kingma Contr'alto Flute

Thomas Inderbinen 'Da Vinci' B Flat Trumpet

Puchner English Horn (39C)

Roberto Spizzichino 22" 2348 Gram Grail Ride Cymbal

Roberto Spizzichino 22" 2559 Gram Asian Ride

Roberto Spizzichino 14 X 6" Stainless Steel Snare Drum

Thomas Inderbinen 'Da Vinci' B Flat Trumpet

Roberto Spizzichino Stainless Steel Snare Drum

W.I.P. >>>>>>>>>

 

Sound Formulary: The Score as Pharmaceutical Compendium By Bil Smith

 

Sound Formulary: The Score as Pharmaceutical Compendium

By Bil Smith

I’ve never believed in the sanctity of the score. I believe in its volatility. Its ability to behave like an unstable molecule defined by interaction, shaped by temperature, duration, resistance. In Sound Formulary, I have built not compositions but compendia...scores that behave more like pharmacological guides than musical texts. Each symbol, each material inclusion, is not a note or cue, but an active agent with conditional efficacy.

Much like a formulary, the curated list of therapeutics permitted within a health system, my scores prescribe sounds through layers of permissions, black-box warnings, delivery vectors, contraindications, and dosage thresholds. I’m not interested in telling performers what to do, but under what conditions they may act. A score isn’t a set of instructions; it’s a permission structure laced with embedded contradictions.

I’ve always admired the absurd specificity of the pharmacopoeia: a drug’s classification, its delivery mode, its systemic effects, its inactive binders. This architecture became a model for me. In these works, an “active ingredient” might be a harmonic artifact. A “delivery mechanism” might be a performer’s breath timed against a page’s margin. An “excipient” (what pharma would call a non-active filler) is, in my scores, the whitespace, the metallic ink, the absence of gesture that supports the act without being it.

There is a score in this series titled RECOMBINANT TEXT / for Aural Bioequivalence Studies. It includes boxed labels, sample vial silhouettes, schedules of administration, and sequence variability dependent on circadian staging. Not as parody. Not as gimmick. But as structural syntax. These are protocols the way extended technique was for 20th-century composition: an invasive, sometimes alien, vocabulary forced into the system until it naturalizes.

This is the kind of music that doesn’t get played; it gets metabolized.

I’ve included materials like powdered gallium, scored cellulose, metallic inks, and blister pack embossings, not as texture, but as data. These elements are not ornamental; they hold notational function, they mediate performance possibilities, and they invite compliance or resistance. Every performance becomes a clinical trial.

In the world of drug development, a compound is tested, dosed, evaluated for efficacy and tolerability. I view my scores the same way. A first performance is a Phase I trial (does the concept survive contact with the body)? Phase II is refinement. Phase III is confrontation. The FDA has no role here, but I have always imagined my notation under regulatory scrutiny: Is it legible? Is it dangerous? Does it induce affective disruption?

The musician becomes a pharmacologist. The sound becomes an off-label event.

The score: a diagnostic artifact.

The mistake: a necessary adverse reaction.

Music, in this formulary, is never safe.

It is investigational. And never intended for general use.

"Propaganda Fly" for B Flat Trumpet; The Jubal Project and Multimodality in Composition

"Propaganda Fly" for B Flat Trumpet

A Jubal Project Composition

Bil Smith Composer

Score: 32" X 12"

As I have written in the past, "The Jubal Project" is an ambitious endeavor that aims to revolutionize music notation by using the circle as a central symbol. By utilizing the circle as a universal symbol, I hope to create a notation system that can oscillate between indexical registrations, symbols of forces in flux, and sensory stimuli, providing a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities that avoids any orientation towards a culmination point or external end. 

One of the key features of this notational archetype is its ability to yield aftereffects that empower the composer and performer, allowing for multiple transformations and variants of sound creation. 

The philosophy behind the Jubal project is the theme of multimodality.  Multimodality is the coexistence of multiple semiotic modes within a given context. Semiotic modes refer to the different ways in which meaning is created and conveyed, such as language, images, sounds, gestures, and movement.

Multimodality is an everyday reality as we experience the world through multiple senses and modes of communication. The rise of digital technologies has led to an increase in multimodal products, such as hyperfiction, digital books, and music compositions that incorporate various modes of expression. The twenty-first century can be seen as a quintessentially multimodal era, making the implementation of multimodality in composition even more urgent and relevant. Although the practice of multimodality has been long-standing, the field of multimodality composition archetypes is still at an early stage of development.