W.I.P.

 

The Sensational Arrow: Notation as Performing Verb

A Sensational Arrow is not a pointer. It is a performing verb. On the page it looks like a vector, but in the body it behaves like a circuit that closes the moment a player touches breath, bow, or skin to it. Each arrow compresses an instruction stack into one graphic unit: where to aim the sound, how to enter, what energy to carry, when to release, and the exact physiology required along the way. I do not draw for description. I draw to cause.

The score becomes a field of forces when these arrows appear. Barlines still exist where useful, yet trajectory governs time more than the grid does. I compose by laying arrow-fields across parts and letting their vectors do the counterpoint. Alignment builds consonance, crossing builds frictive harmony, and parallel drift builds timbral chorus. Ensemble form is not a chain of measures. It is a weave of directed motions that share checkpoints and thresholds.

This is why the arrows sit at the center of my pages rather than at the margins like mere cues. They carry the architecture.

I argue for coercion as an ethical stance in composition. Notation should not plead. It should demand. The Sensational Arrow functions as a coercive device that transforms free agency into calibrated labor. The body is pressed into a vector, and the vector is the work. This is closer to engineering than to poetry, although the surface shines.

The system also clarifies responsibility. When the arrow is heavy, the player is bound. When the arrow is light, the player is trusted. That clarity produces better ensembles because contracts replace hunches. No mystical “feel” has to be negotiated in real time.

I do not draw arrows to point. I draw them to act. Each Sensational Arrow on my score page is a machine that converts sight into behavior, a tiny grammar that binds breath, muscle, and time. I am not looking for decoration. I am engineering compulsion, with kindness when I can manage it.

I borrowed the foundations for this from linguistics, not from music theory. In the Minimalist Program, features drive operations. Merge applies because a feature requires it, and movement happens because a higher probe seeks a goal. My arrows work the same way. The modules carry features that trigger operations: split, hold, fricativize, shadow, detune. The performer is the parser. The bodily syntax is executed in real time. Ambiguity is tolerated only when I draw a thin outline, which functions like optionality. A heavy contour, by contrast, is the fat feature bundle that admits no negotiation.

Semantic content appears as timbre and effort. Syntax appears as gesture order. The score is not a picture of future sound. It is a derivation tree, flattened and made beautiful so that the hands will obey without sulking.

Why I prefer coercion to suggestion

I do not want notation to plead for a result. I want it to produce one. Suggestion invites diplomacy, which eats rehearsal time and replaces rigor with charm. Coercion, administered transparently and with boundaries, gives us time to care for the beautiful parts. The arrow carries the boring argument, so we can listen.

There is also a politics here. The old scaffold of notation pretends to neutrality while smuggling in a narrow idea of correct bodies and correct breaths. My system states its power on the page. Heavy means I rule. Light means you rule. Everyone knows where the line is. That clarity cools the room.

The language of the page, the body as grammar

Chabon taught me to love surfaces that sparkle, and to pack narrative into an object that seems simple until it opens. The arrow is my candy wrapper, but it is also the candy, chewy and caloric. 

Chomsky taught me to respect mechanisms that generate infinitely from finite parts. My modules are finite, the combinations proliferate, and the resulting behavior remains legible because the grammar is consistent.

In the end I write arrows because they let me be generous and strict at the same time. The shapes seduce the eye, while the law inside the shape keeps the music honest. The body learns to parse the vectors, then the vectors redesign the body. That transformation is the piece. I do not decorate scores. I draft contracts. When the page is full of these contracts, players come away tired and pleased, and the room carries a new kind of silence that feels earned.

I will keep drawing. I will keep testing the balance of outline weight and license, the number of modules a lung can swallow, the distance between a gallery print and a studio take. The arrows continue to teach me what music can be when the picture truly commands, and when the command is understood as a shared grammar rather than a hidden hierarchy. This is not a phase. This is my literacy.

W.I.P. (EXCERPT)

 

 

Hulls, Sutures, Sound: Composing with Lee Bontecou’s Voids

In the corner of the gallery, the Lee Bontecou sculpture stands like a portal to another universe. You can’t help but lean closer, drawn into the dark recesses, the shadowy voids that seem to whisper their own language. It’s not unlike the feeling of reading a musical score for the first time, that overwhelming possibility embedded in a system of signs and symbols. Bontecou’s work, with its industrial assemblages and eerily organic forms, feels alive in its potential, brimming with the same kind of energy that a composer seeks to harness in their music. It’s the energy of creation itself.  It's raw, exploratory, and unapologetically unconventional.

For composers, Bontecou’s work isn’t just an aesthetic marvel; it’s a roadmap, a set of principles and provocations for rethinking what a musical score can be. It’s not about copying her visual style but about channeling her ethos, her approach to material, space, and narrative, to forge something entirely new. Let’s step into Bontecou’s world and see how her artistic sensibilities might be translated into a composer’s toolkit, creating scores that are as much sculptures as they are blueprints for sound.

The Void as Musical Space

Bontecou’s most iconic works feature cavities.  Cavities that are dark, impenetrable voids that seem to both devour and radiate energy. These voids are metaphors for absence, mystery, and potential. In music, silence often functions in a similar way: it isn’t just the absence of sound; it’s a space pregnant with meaning, tension, and possibility.

Practical Application for Composers

Imagine a score where voids...literal cutouts in the paper or digital blacked-out spaces represent moments of interpretive freedom. These gaps could signify silences, open improvisations, or even cues for performers to physically move or rearrange parts of the score.  These voids disrupt the linearity of traditional notation, inviting performers to engage in a dialogue with the score’s architecture.

Assemblages as Modular Scores

Bontecou’s sculptures are intricate assemblages of materials where steel, canvas, and wire are stitched and welded into cohesive yet fragmented wholes. Each element is distinct, but together they form a narrative, a system that feels both industrial and alive. For composers, this modularity offers a way to think about musical structure in non-linear, combinatory terms.

Practical Application for Composers

Scores could be designed as assemblages being discrete, movable parts that can be reconfigured by performers. Each module contains its own musical material, and the performer determines the sequence or relationship between them.  The score becomes an interactive artifact, a collaborative process between composer and performer that reflects Bontecou’s layered, dynamic approach to composition.

Material as Meaning

Bontecou’s choice of materials such as industrial fabrics, molded plastics, and steel wasn’t just about aesthetics. These materials carried meaning, referencing the post-war industrial landscape, the tension between human and machine, the fragility of nature against the weight of modernity. For composers, the materiality of the score itself can be a narrative element, a tactile layer of meaning.

Practical Application for Composers

Instead of traditional paper, consider using unconventional materials for the score. Metal sheets, translucent acrylic, or textured fabric can each add a sensory dimension to the notational experience. This approach transforms the score into an object of art, blurring the lines between composer, performer, and sculptor.

Narrative Through Line and Shape

Bontecou’s drawings, often described as “kinetic psychologies,” explore line as a narrative force. Graphite arcs, jagged edges, and swirling forms seem to map out emotional landscapes, processes of thought and motion. In music, line is already central, but Bontecou’s approach pushes us to think of line as a gesture, a story unto itself.

Practical Application for Composers

Graphic notation inspired by Bontecou’s drawings could serve as a primary or supplementary layer of the score. Lines might represent trajectories of sound, shifts in dynamics, or even spatial movement of performers.  The score becomes a living narrative, an evolving dialogue between the composer’s visual language and the performer’s interpretation.

Bontecou’s Narratives of Mystery

Suzanne Hudson, writing for Artforum, described Bontecou’s work as narrating her own kinetic and interior process, glimpsing forms as they take shape and evolve. This emphasis on process over product aligns with the trend in contemporary music toward indeterminacy and open-form works.

Practical Application for Composers

Scores can reflect the process of their own creation, embedding layers of revision, improvisation, and discovery. The composer’s drafts, sketches, and marginalia could become part of the final score.  This approach aligns the score with Bontecou’s ethos of evolution and possibility, where each performance becomes an act of re-creation.

Looking Forward: Bontecou’s Legacy in Music

Lee Bontecou’s art offers more than inspiration; it offers a challenge. How can composers create scores that don’t just encode sound but evoke the tactile, the spatial, the emotional? How can the act of reading and performing a score become as dynamic and layered as Bontecou’s sculptures? The answers lie in embracing interdisciplinary methods, in treating the score as a multidimensional artifact that 

The Infinite Possibilities of the Void

Bontecou’s voids are never empty. They hum with potential, with the tension between what is seen and what is felt. In the same way, the contemporary score is not just a set of instructions but a site of exploration, a space where sound, touch, and vision collide. By drawing on Bontecou’s legacy, composers can create works that are not only heard but experienced, not only performed but lived. In this transformative era for music, Bontecou reminds us that the void is not an absence, but it is a beginning.

"Stellum" for Oboe. The score. A Commission from BAE Systems

"Stellum" for Oboe.

Analysis and Commentary by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Upon perusal of the score, one is immediately confronted with a paradoxical directive. The oboist is thrust into a world where the conventional techniques and structures of music are abandoned in favor of uncharted sonic territories. This is a realm inhabited by what are colloquially known as "twentieth-century techniques," a lexicon of sounds that defy tradition and convention.

These techniques encompass a myriad of unorthodox methods for coaxing sounds from the oboe's wooden form. Alternate fingerings dance alongside harmonics, multiphonics harmonize with double trills, and trills with microintervals beckon the performer to tread perilously close to the edge of musical convention. Among these techniques is a peculiar effect known as "over-blowing," a technique shrouded in mystery, entailing alternate fingerings and heightened air pressure. But here's the Kafkaesque twist—Smith, the composer, refuses to provide explicit instructions for these avant-garde effects within the score.

Much like Kafka's protagonists who find themselves navigating bureaucratic mazes, Smith thrusts the performer into a realm of ambiguity and uncertainty. The oboist is left to navigate the score's labyrinthine passages without a map, guided only by intuition and collaboration. This act of collaboration is itself a Kafkaesque metaphor—a reflection of the interconnectedness and shared responsibility inherent in the creative process.

Yet, "Stellum" for Oboe is more than just a collection of avant-garde techniques; it's a manifestation of the Freudian subconscious through sound. Smith's score transcends mere notation; it plunges into the depths of the oboe's voice, merging content and form into a hypnotic continuum. The oboist's breath becomes a medium for prosaic utterances that lull the listener into a state of eerie clarity, only to thrust them into the surreal landscapes of the mind through free-form associative patterns.

As the oboist embarks on this auditory odyssey, the score blurs into uncannily vivid scenarios. It's as though the performer's very eyes are fed with imagery—a Freudian-style shopping list of the subconscious. The oboist's breath becomes a vessel for the surreal, a conduit for the uncanny, and a portal into the depths of human cognition.

"The Futility Of His Occupation". A Fanfare For Alto Saxophone

Commentary by Charles Simic, Poet and Poetry Editor of The Paris Review

Let us address the post-modern saxophonist's burden when confronting the stark emotional wilderness mapped in Bil Smith's offbeat fanfare, "The Futility of His Occupation." One enters this austere 10-minute solo expecting affidavits of grandeur and brassy bravado endemic to the swaggering jazz tradition. What greets our embouchured antihero instead is an angst-ridden internal monologue splayed in discontinuous fits, starts, and paralytic silences.

Bereft of any earnest melody, our altoist wanders through a fractured landscape haunted by ghosts of genre past. The entirety transpires in a nebulous minor mode, flickering hints of hopeful major peaks extinguished just as swiftly. Sparse notation offers mere waypoints over treacherous terrain, barlines and time signatures erased in favor of Smith’s hallmark “temporal proportioning.”

Thus unmoored, the saxophonist must channel righteous improvisational fury to imbue formlessness with conviction. Yet ours is a quixotic quest, tilted against the affectless procession of lonesome echoing tones wasting in the empty expanse. We aspire toward lyricism but are rewarded solely with fragments, shard-strewn across Five Points’ unforgiving stage.

So too does even modest ambition elude our clasping. Smith’s meticulous indication of clinical multiphonics—the simultaneously sounded harmonic pitches so prized in contemporary classical circles—epitomizes technical conceit. But ingenuity is not genius; in practice, these fruits of instrumental expansion expire listless on the alter of expressive poverty.

And perhaps this hollowness lays bare the deeper existential crisis. What space remains for saxophone identity when even defiant rebellion has been distilled and commodified by the avant-garde machine? For all its impenetrable graphics mimicking meaning, “Futility” offers no way forward, no seeds of resurrection, no heroic overcoming of muted despair. Merely the simulacra of subversion sustained note by empty note.

We can posit post-modern pastiche as a defiant statement unto itself. Yet I suspect Smith intends no supercilious social commentary. Instead, we face sincere angst borne of a medium pushed past its breaking point. For all the promise of liberation promised by the 20th century sonic boom, has not our omnivorous appetite for novelty yielded naught but diminished returns?

Even noise itself has lost its disruptive power, subsumed into an academic silo diligently studied, safely sanitized. And where noise and pure sound have joined melody and harmony along the great chain of co-optation, where may our beleaguered saxophonist retreat to wrest purpose from craft? When all roads lead to alienation, what destiny but futility awaits this occupation and its adherents?

Alas, let us table the philosophy for footnoted rumination another day. Demand beckons for our altoist to render these graphic hieroglyphs sensible with spirit and spittle before an audience rendered comatose. Perhaps catharsis lies waiting within the maw of performative expectation, if only we can channel just one transcendent minute from this over-intellectualized ordeal. Allow deaf tradition to swell once more against the dying of the light. Play on, brave saxophonist! With apology to the bard, silence is not golden when notes remain yet unplayed.

"Breaking Ball" for Flute, Violin, Clarinet, Cello and Piano

At the heart of "Breaking Ball" lies my disciplined private choreography, a nuanced dialogue with the legacies of Merce Cunningham and John Cage. The piece does not merely reference these giants of modern composition and performance; it converses with them, extending their inquiries into the nature of performance and the essence of sound itself. The score, with its multi-directional notational system, serves as the medium of this conversation, challenging performers to navigate its complexities

Viewed up close, the score of "Breaking Ball" reveals a multi-directional amalgamation of notational elements, caught perpetually between emergence and disappearance. This liminal state, where notational marks seem poised on the edge of evaporation, embodies the ephemeral nature of performance itself. The piece, through its visual and musical language, models the ways in which asemic marks—those without specific semantic content—can carry meaning, becoming imbued with significance as they are woven into the fabric of the composition.

The serial application of new notational content, layering across staves and rows, poses a challenge to the integrity of the composition. Each addition, each mark made, risks obscuring what came before, threatening the coherence of the whole. Yet these are not reckless acts of spontaneity but isolated, irrevocable choices. Each decision, each mark on the page, is a deliberate step in the creation of a musical narrative that is as much about the notes themselves as it is about the space and silence that frame them.

Performing "Breaking Ball" is an act of high risk. It demands a level of engagement and interpretive skill from musicians that goes beyond the technical mastery of their instruments. The performers must delve into the score, deciphering its dense fields and navigating its competing striations to bring forth the music that dwells within. This process is not just about the recreation of sound but the realization of a vision, a collaborative act of creation that bridges the gap between composer and performer, score and sound.

The score of "Breaking Ball," with its intricate notational system and its demand for a deep, interpretive engagement, serves as a vivid reminder of the dynamic nature of musical creation. It stands as a chronicle of the compositional process, a mnemonic device that indexes the passage of time and the myriad decisions that shape the final work. In this way, the piece becomes more than just a musical composition; it is a meditation on the act of creation itself, a reflection on the distance between the original impulse and the final expression.

"Hardpoints" for Oboe

 "Hardpoints"

For Oboe

Bil Smith Composer

2022

Link to Hi-Res PDF Score File

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zg-RmL7s3UDiQRiChNPc2i3aRxm3Zgsb/view?usp=sharing

"Charmed Into Docility" for Bass Flute and Bassoon

"Charmed Into Docility"

for Bass Flute and Bassoon

Bil Smith Composer

Published by LNM Editions

Link to Full Score (PDF)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hGk5rOdpM_RMiD1TZPNkIzeKg2eneII8/view?usp=sharing

"Triumphant Adoration". A Fanfare for Zirnbauer Piccolo Trumpet. Link To PDF.

Zirnbauer Piccolo Trumpet

PDF Link to Score

“Triumphant Adoration”: Notes for the Zirnbauer Piccolo Trumpet

“Triumphant Adoration” looks uniform at first glance. The surface repeats a family of figures with cool consistency, as if stamped from a single die. That is a purposeful disguise. Each figure is a module, and each module is a container that can hold many different kinds of sound. The score gives you a steady visual grammar so your eye can read quickly while your ear stays free to choose, vary, and recalibrate in performance.

What the symbols carry

The symbology works on four tracks at once.

1. Informational: color strands and contour lines act as gauges for air intensity, spectral focus, and articulation density. Read them as dials that can rise, level, or drain.

2. Climactic: clustered marks collect into ridges, then thin to plateaus. Peaks are created by density and rate of change, not only by register and volume.

3. Structural: recurring silhouettes return like architectural bays. They measure where you are in the form, and they invite measured deformation on each pass.

4. Aural: the notational surface suggests a sound image before you play. Smooth ribbons ask for legato continuity and centered tone. Spiked filigree asks for particulate onsets, valve noise, and light overpressure.

Modules as sound containers

Treat every recurring figure as a kit with swappable parts rather than a fixed sentence. A typical module can carry:

• a pitch stratum (single tone, dyad oscillation, or slivered micro-steps),

• an articulation field (single-tongue, double-tongue, breath pulse, or no tongue),

• a timbre recipe (clear tone, half-valve shade, air–tone blend),

• an envelope shape that matches the drawn contour.

Repeat the module as written, then choose one parameter to vary. Hold rhythm and envelope steady. On the next recurrence, vary a different parameter. The piece builds heat through controlled substitution, not through constant reinvention.

The instrument’s physics as form

The Zirnbauer piccolo trumpet responds like a pressure lens. Tiny changes to airflow and valve depth produce audible color shifts. The score leans into that sensitivity. Long horizontal lines invite radiant sustain at a narrow aperture. Bursts of tight marks call for fast valve choreography, short sprints of tongue, and a touch of metallic edge. When you see a smooth descent of an energy line, let brilliance taper but keep projection. When the line rises, compress the air before you raise volume. The goal is luminosity before loudness.

Hierarchies that displace habit

Traditional hierarchies are gently rearranged. Pitch class gives ground to envelope and grain. Volume cedes authority to density. A fanfare usually crowns register and decibel. Here the crown goes to clarity of profile. The audience should be able to draw what they hear. That is the adoration: a focus that glows rather than shouts.

Reading the strata

• Top strata (smooth tracks): sustain rails. Keep tone centered. Let vibrato appear only if a line ripples.

• Middle strata (beaded or scalloped marks): propulsion bays. Activate with crisp tongue or valve tremble. Keep the length of the bay steady even if the bead size changes.

• Dark bands or veils: acoustic masking. Reduce harmonic glare, favor core over sizzle, and show restraint in vibrato.

• Islands and spikes: articulatory events. Choose a fixed attack family for that island and repeat it identically within the island.

Climactic logic

The score makes climaxes by staging accumulation rather than a single summit. Think of a staircase with three landings. Landing one is density. Landing two is altitude in tessitura. Landing three is brightness. Do not arrive at all three at once. Stack them and you will feel the room tighten in a satisfying way.

Practice method

1. Inventory the modules on the first page and write a one-line recipe for each.

2. Air map the long rails without pitch. Breathe where the rails suggest, not where habit expects.

3. Parameter cycling: on each recurrence of a figure, hold two parameters constant and vary one. Keep a short ledger in the part to avoid random drift.

4. Climax rehearsal: rehearse the landings separately, then chain them. Never add brightness before density.

On fanfare and devotion

The title pairs two impulses. Triumph supplies radiance and lift. Adoration supplies attention and care. The piccolo trumpet will gladly give you the first by sheer physics. The score earns the second by asking for control under pressure. When the final plateau arrives, the instrument should feel wide open and perfectly calm.

Uniform notation here is not minimalism. It is hospitality. It frees the eye, organizes the hand, and lets the ear decide which version of brilliance to bring to the room. In that sense the system is a delivery device for information, climax, structure, and listening, all at once. Work inside its limits and you will perforate the usual boundaries of trumpet playing without theatrics, which is the most convincing triumph of all.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cpBygsLqHjPpE6tC1Nvt7WoMJWuVQ0LC/view?usp=sharing