Score and Program Notes
Sounds Ineffable
Here is a link to the PDF score of Sounds Ineffable and programme notes
from the composer and performer below.
Composer's Note
In Sounds Ineffable, the sounds of the singer are simultaneously stretched out by real time computer processing, creating different copies of the sound progressing at different rates. This process does not include any pre-recorded singing and results not in a delay exactly, but in what would have been called in the European Middle Ages a mensuration canon -- a piece being combined with itself at different speeds. These tempos are related to the original sound by the same integer proportions used in the tuning of the notes, creating resonances both in time, as the sung lines converge and diverge, and in pitch, forming just harmonies with each other. The words, though, dissolve in the paradox of sensory perceptions leading to the insensible.
–Bill Alves
Text and Translation
Pubbenivāsaṃ jānāmi, dibbacakkhuṃ visodhitaṃ;
Cetopariccañāṇañca, sotadhātu visodhitā.
Iddhīpi me sacchikatā, patto me āsavakkhayo;
Chaḷabhiññā sacchikatā, kataṃ buddhassa sāsanaṃ.
– Therīgāthā, (from Uppalavana's verses)
Translation:
I know that I have lived before, the divine eye has been purified;
There is knowledge of others' inward life, I hear the sounds ineffable.
I have realized senses beyond the Earth and annihilated the asavas*;
I have realized these knowledges; the Buddha's teaching has been done.
*Asava: a sense or mental bias that binds one to the world. This paraphrased translation has been adapted from K.R. Norman with the assistance and helpful interpretations of James Anderson.
