"Red Is You And You" for Piccolo (Soprillo) Saxophone

"Red Is You And You"

for Piccolo (Soprillo) Saxophone

Bil Smith Composer

Score Published by LNM Editions

2023

About The Soprillo:

The Soprillo Saxophone is a piccolo saxophone. It is technically known as the sopranissimo saxophone. Currently, it is only manufactured by one company: Benedikt Eppelsheim Wind Instruments in Germany.

In the saxophone family, it is considered to be the highest and smallest, sitting just above the sopranino.

It is pitched in Bb, and is one octave above the soprano saxophone. Its written range is Bb3 to Eb6, or concert pitches Ab4 to Db7. It is not considered a standard instrument for jazz or orchestral groups.

One unique quality of the soprillo, as opposed to the more common soprano saxophone, is the placement of the octave key. On a soprillo sax, the octave is actually part of the mouthpiece! This is unusual to see in practice, but makes sense acoustically.

As the soprillo is only thirteen inches long with the mouthpiece attached, the tone holes are extremely close together. Therefore, the octave key would need to be placed much closer to the source of the sound – the vibrating - rred than on other saxophones. Because the keys are so small, the pearl buttons almost completely cover the keys and tone holes. This is a very small saxophone for most players. Playing the soprillo requires exceptional strength. Because the embouchure needed is very firm and the range is exceptionally high, it is only recommended for professional players. 

"Discourse and Conclusion" for Bass Clarinet in B Flat

"Discourse & Conclusion"

For Bass Clarinet in B Flat

Bil Smith Composer

2023

Published by LNM Editions

Like to PDF Full Score:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CrIwPB-ERzDiVRxLwPW98WTLX1WOa4Mf/view?usp=sharing

 

New Work for Bass Clarinet in Progress

 

"Reboard The Fiendish Conveyance". For Ensemble. The Full Score PDF Link

"Reboard The Fiendish Conveyance"

For Ensemble.

Bil Smith Composer

Published on LNM Editions

(Laboratorie New Music)

PDF Link To Score:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByXT8veODB_TeWV6VFRSV3pSczg/view?usp=sharing

"Power Guardian" for B Flat Inox Trumpet

 

"The Dial Slept At Zero". For Piano. The Full Score on LNM Editions.

"The Dial Slept At Zero"

 For Piano

Bil Smith Composer

World Premiere

The High Line at The Whitney Museum.  NY, NY

The Full Score on LNM Editions

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5lqYq0XwE76X3ZjR3BSWXM2a1E/view?usp=sharing

PART II: A Surface Construct as a Tablature for the Performer. The Evolution of Composition and the Score.

A Surface Construct as a Tablature for the Performer. The Evolution of Composition and the Score. 

 A student asked me is this piece more complex or less complex than Brian Ferneyhough's Mnemosyne or Sisyphus Redux? 

 My response..."Don't weaponize complexity" 

Any part of this new notational system (tablature) can be generated by the functional demands it has to meet, however its relationship to those requirements is not an ethical one; they are not necessarily the nature or true substance of the notational system. 

 The polytypic nature of this new music lexicon (language) suggests that there can be a gap between the way each visual icon will look and perform. For the performer, this notation or pattern can play multiple interrelated roles, each capable of being understood without knowledge or appreciation of the others. One might zero in on a particular coloring effect while another gravitates towards its structural logic. It can also appeal to multiple audiences. 

 In this work for solo flute, here are two pages for the performer to interpret throughout the score. The overlay transparency page consisting of Moire elements lies above the surface construct tablature page. 

 As one pages through the score these are consistently alternating, one transparency Moire based score page residing above the surface imagery construct. The capacity of a surface construct to embody and adapt to changing material information being processed by the performer - information that is arranged to withstand large amounts of geometric interpretation provides a suppleness to the score. 

 At first glance, the page looks like a constellation of randomly chosen imagery as opposed to a traditional stave and notational system. In fact it is a highly calibrated and topologically generated tablature whose overall effect is sonically deep and complex. The interpreter/performer should recognize each page of the score and image itself belies its agility in adapting to different operative and environmental requirements. 

To successfully execute the score, the performer must take an integrative approach which will result in a combinatorial interpretation that performs multiple roles with nuanced effects. In this score, patterns are meant to function as more than a motif or an expedient design tool as they must be able to produce new sonic environments by linking the notation's internal (that is formal and spatial techniques) with extradisciplinary knowledge. 

Their capacity for doing so is granted along three interrelated lines; their redundant qualities, their flexibility and their combinatory logic.

In the end, it's music...it's composition that does not play by all of the rules.

Fanfare "Xenium" for Trombone

"Boxcar Full Of Air" The Full Score (PDF)

"Boxcar Full Of Air"  

For C Trumpet and Piano

Bil Smith Composer

The Full Score (PDF)

A Commission from Navistar

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5lqYq0XwE76LVFKSUROOC1qcTQ/view?usp=sharing

The Composer As A Magician: The Magician as Composer

As magicians have long known and musicians are increasingly discovering, human perception is a jury-rigged apparatus, full of gaps and easily manipulated.

A great deal of the success of a piece of magic is simply getting the audience’s attention and sending it to the wrong place – to a right hand flourishing a wand while the left secrets a ball away in a pocket or plucks a card from a sleeve. 

Excerpt from String Quartet.  "Explorer, Producer, Stoic After Your Fashion"

Magic shows are masterpieces of misdirection: they assault us with bright colors and shiny things, with puffs of smoke and with the constant obfuscatory patter that many magicians keep up as they perform.

The vanishing ball illusion is one of the most basic tricks a magician can learn: a ball is thrown repeatedly into the air and caught. Then, on the final throw, it disappears in midair. In fact, the magician has merely mimed the last throw, following the ball’s imagined upward trajectory with his eyes while keeping it hidden in his hand.

But if the technique is easily explained, the phenomenon itself is not.

If done right, the trick actually makes observers see the ball rising into the air on the last toss and vanishing at its apex. This is something more powerful than merely getting someone to look in the wrong direction – it’s a demonstration of how easy it is to nudge the brain into the realm of actual hallucination.

And cognitive scientists still don’t know exactly what’s causing it to happen.

The question is…are composers?

The composer as a magician.

"Dynamic Turnadot" for Tuba