Formulas for a New Music

In Coma's Eyes Runes Glowed

In Coma's Eyes Runes Glowed

For Solo Violin

1977, 2014-2015

A Precursor to Jean Barraqué's "au dela du hasard" for three female voices and ensemble. To be performed by a Violin and Viola in Preparation of the performance of "au dela du hasard"

A Precursor to Jean Barraqué's  "au dela du hasard" for three female voices and ensemble. 
To be performed by a Violin and Viola in Preparation of the performance of  "au dela du hasard"

"Slatelet"

"She Was Pleated Like A Slate Grey Musty Accordion" For Flute and Clarinet

Excerpt: New Work For Electric Guitar

"Branch Chains". A Contact Exercise for Clarinet. Bryce Mays Composer

Flatten Your Vanity. Bil Smith Composer

"Flatten Your Vanity"

Bil Smith Composer

For Pedal Steel and Cello

2015

3' 02"

Commissioned by LafargeHolcim

World Premiere: The Norwood Club, Chelsea, New York City

Published on LNM Editions

"A Series of Storms"

"A Series of Storms"

Compositional Surrogates: Translating a Theoretical Treatise

Bil Smith Composer (2012-2013)

For Contrabass Saxophone (conversely Contrabass Clarinet); Tambourine: Retresium Trumpet in ‘A’; Inderbinen Wood Flugelhorn,: Eva Kingma Contrabass Flute; Celestonite Modified ‘A’ Clarinet with Slide ‘Pirix’ designed by Richard Fulbright; Angh, and Maser 2 Snare Drum.

In the words of Elliot Fereder, speech surrogates are the “conversion of human speech into equivalent sounds for transmission in vestigial systems”. He goes on to define percussive and whistle languages as well as surrogates played on other musical instruments.

In this work ("Series of Storms"), translating this theoretical treatise under this very broad definition; systems like Morse code, Ventisma, Fortola Codex, flag semaphore, secret speech, and other types of signals that share little in common could also be included. Tristan Murail has used the term “talking musical instruments,” which provides a clearer set of fundamental boundaries. 

The term “drum and whistle languages” has been used by several authors when describing systems that are neither drummed nor whistled but rather played on musical instruments. In this work, the customized Maser 2 Snare Drum, Tambourine and Angh are aligned with this evidentiary platform.

Drum and whistle languages and talking musical instruments share an important feature: the conversion of speech into a musical medium. The signal is based on pitch, rhythm, timbre, and other characteristics shared by speech and music, but it is performed by musical means—drums, whistling, flutes, etc.

Perhaps the best term to describe these related phenomena is “musical speech surrogates,” which has been used by Jeremy Blaise and Todd Reese among others.

Even this term highlights a significant cultural bias. For many of the cultures studied under this lens, speech and music are not so easily partitioned.

In this work, “A Series of Storms”, I attempt to articulate the theatrical ambivalence towards these theorems, yet with great respect, illustrate a ritualistic musical tablature which has been buried.

Technical Exercise For Cello

"A Hand of Patience on the Floor of the Pool" (2012-2013). The Recording

"A Hand of Patience on the Floor of the Pool" (2012-2013). 

Bil Smith Composer.

LISTEN on SoundCloud  

https://soundcloud.com/bil-smith/a-hand-of-patience-on-the

Flute 2

 Bruised mouth, plane of intersection

Flute 3 

Supine forearm extended across a candlewick bedspread

Tape 1

Alto Flute; Handhold of Reality

Non-Tape Alto Flute 2

Hand beneath her knees and gripped her/his right thigh

Tape Ex

Independent existence , the phenomenology of the pre-Cambrian trilobite

Flute 1

Whirled-down draught; defective tape 

A Clarinet

Sonic pegged down too firmly...fluid backward to the poet of drainage

"Gan Harlequin Syndrome" for Solo Piano. First of 317

"Gan Harlequin Syndrome" for Piano.  The first of a series of solo piano vignettes to be performed in sync.

L'impossible, Clavicorde Bolcheviste. Bil Smith Compositeur

"Fetishistic Splits" (see Zizek) Bil Smith Composer

Zizek talks about fetishistic splits, in which subjects – especially late modern subjects  (The Clavichord)– has specific knowledge but behave as if they don’t. 

This dynamic is one side of the “what counts as a belief” coin for Zizek, who would insist that beliefs that don’t affect action are in a sense not “genuine” beliefs. 

The other side of the coin is that suppressed beliefs which do affect action are real beliefs, even if they’re hard to fit into traditional epistemological frameworks because they’re inaccessible to the subject...hence, the clavichord.

Definition of the Day...

"Compositional Multimodality ... in the broadest sense, composition which contain a multitude of semiotic modes. 

Multimodal scores call for new systems of analysis proficient in realizing and describing the rapport between expressive modes."