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A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Humanities/Philosophies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 July 2021) | Viewed by 39248

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Heather MacLachlan

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Guest Editor

Department of Music, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469, USA
Interests: ethnomusicology; Burma/Myanmar; choral singing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Religions, titled “Music in World Religions,” focuses on the intersections between music making and religious traditions from around the world. Articles in this issue will illuminate how religious ideas shape musical behavior, the roles that music plays in religious rituals, and the significance of music in the lives of religious people across the globe. Much of the recently published English-language scholarly literature about music and religion addresses music in Christianity (including a recent issue of Religions). Therefore, in this Special Issue, we seek to explore music in religions (broadly conceived) beyond Christianity. In so doing, we aim to build on previous survey collections with a similar scope (such as Sacred Sound: Experiencing Music in World Religions, ed. Guy Beck, 2006, and Sacred Sound: Music in Religious Thought and Practice, ed. Joyce Irwin, 1983). Music, understood as an activity that is distinct from both sound-making and speech, is present in all human communities—including in societies where dominant religious teaching either forbids or sharply restricts music making. The articles in “Music in World Religions” explore the universal human impulse to create music, looking through the lenses of religious beliefs and normative religious behaviors.

Dr. Heather MacLachlan
Guest Editor

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Keywords

music
singing
ritual
Islam
Judaism
Hinduism
Santeria
Sikh

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Published Papers (11 papers)

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Editorial

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10 pages, 238 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Introduction to Special Issue, Music in World Religions: A Response to Isabel Laack

by Heather MacLachlan

Religions 2021, 12(12), 1044; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121044 - 25 Nov 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2000

Abstract

This article serves to introduce a special issue of Religions, titled Music in World Religions. A 2015 article by religion scholar Isabel Laack claimed that the study of music and religion has been neglected by Laack’s peers in the field of religions. Responding to Laack, I argue that scholars of music have been making important contributions to the study of music and religion and, indeed, have been addressing the twelve specific topics she highlights for decades. After summarizing academic works which respond to Laack’s twelve categories of inquiry, I introduce each of the articles in this special issue, showing that each of these also address the gap in the literature that Laack perceived. Ultimately, I argue that transdisciplinarity in the study of music and religion is alive and well, and is exemplified both by historic writings and by those contained in Music in World Religions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

Research

Jump to: Editorial, Review

21 pages, 825 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Songs of Dissent and Consciousness: Pronouncements of the Bauls of Rural Bengal

by Uttaran Dutta, Panchali Banerjee, Soham Ghosh, Priyam Ghosal, Samya Srimany and Sahana Mukherjee

Religions 2021, 12(11), 1018; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12111018 - 18 Nov 2021

Viewed by 2573

Abstract

Bauls, the wandering minstrels of rural Bengal (of both Bangladesh and India), are a socio-religiously marginalized cultural group. While the ritualistic practices and spiritual discourses of the Bauls have received scholarly attention, scholarship on Bauls’ songs about material and communicative adversities and their emancipatory visions is lacking. Bauls’ performances and discourses are precursors to envisioning alternative emancipatory possibilities that question dominant intolerances, oppressions, and exploitations. This article documents and reflects on the works of two contemporary Bauls—Shah Abdul Karim and Manimohan Das. Through their songs and performances, they (i) question the power structure and legitimize the sufferings and struggles of the downtrodden, and (ii) seek to raise societal consciousness in imagining a free and just society. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

14 pages, 919 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Theorizing the (Un)Sounded in Sikhī: Anhad, Sabad, and Kīrtan

by Inderjit N. Kaur

Religions 2021, 12(11), 1007; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12111007 - 16 Nov 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2293

Abstract

Listening to sabad kīrtan (sung scriptural verse) is a core, everyday, widespread, and loved worship practice of Sikhs around the globe. Thus, it would be fair to state that sounding is central to Sikh worship. Indeed, the Sikh scripture considers kīrtan to be an eminent mode of devotion. Yet, the ultimate aim of this sonic practice is to sense the “unsounded” vibration—anhad—and thereby the divine and divine ethical virtues. Based on a close reading of Sikh sacred texts and ethnographic research, and drawing on the analytic of transduction, the paper explicates the embodied vibratory dimensions of the (unsounded) anhad and (sounded) sabad kīrtan. It argues that the central purpose of the Sikh (un)sounding perceptual practice is embodied ethical attunement for an unmediated experience of the divine and divine ethical virtues, and thereby the development of an ethical life. At the intersection of music, sound, religious, and philosophical studies, the analysis reveals the centrality of the body in worship and ethical development, and contributes to interdisciplinary conversations on sensory epistemologies in faith traditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

24 pages, 4640 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Writing Orisha Music: Text, Tradition, and Creativity in Afro-Cuban Liturgy

by David Font-Navarrete

Religions 2021, 12(11), 964; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12110964 - 3 Nov 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 5376

Abstract

This essay examines the flow of music associated with orisha—anthropomorphic deities—across networks defined variously by art, scholarship, folklore, and religion, all of which overlap and nourish each other. Transmitted via oral tradition, written texts, and multimedia technologies, a handful of orisha-themed songs are analyzed as case studies in the subtle nexus of liturgy and cultural authenticity. Taken together, the songs shed light on a broader phenomenon in which creatively-minded, ostensibly-secular iterations of culture play a significant role in the dissemination and ongoing codification of ritual orthodoxy. Orisha music traditions are analyzed as a fertile ground for a multitude of devotional and/or artistic expressions, many of which have a particularly ambiguous relationship to the concept of religion. In this context, the fluid movements of orisha music between ostensibly sacred and secular contexts can be usefully understood as not only common, but as a conspicuous and characteristic aspect of the tradition. The essay’s structure and rhetorical strategies offer distinct layers of cultural and historical commentary, reflecting a multi-vocal tradition of exchanges among orisha music scholars, artists, and ritual experts. The essay’s historical analysis of orisha music further suggests that a host of subtle, seldom-discussed phenomena—multilingualism, liturgical ambiguity, and transmission via multimedia technologies—are not necessarily aberrant or irregular, but rather vital themes which have resonated clearly across the Afro-Atlantic for at least a century. By obligating us to attend to both musical meaning and cultural context, the essay’s case studies of orisha music shed light on the mingling and synthesis of elements from varied historical sources, languages, and cultural idioms, each of which represent distinct notions of tradition, creativity, religiosity, and secularism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

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10 pages, 226 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Ibtihalat in the Digital Age: Public and Private Domains

by Heba Arafa Abdelfattah

Religions 2021, 12(10), 866; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100866 - 13 Oct 2021

Viewed by 2956

Abstract

One of the most popular cultures in Islam is the genre of “hymns” or “invocations” (pl. ibtihalat, sing. ibtihal), which has recently been amplified on social media platforms. The ibtihalat are Arabic short poems performed by a sheikh known as the “supplicator” (mubtahil). They air regularly on Arabic TV stations and more frequently on radio stations, especially those broadcasting about the Qur’an, its recitation, and its interpretation. In Egypt, the Qur’an’s radio station, which has millions of followers, launched a YouTube station that airs ibtihalat before and after dawn prayer daily. The viewership of one ibtihal like that of Sheikh Sayyid al-Naqshabandi’s “My Lord” (Mawlay) reached 11 million on YouTube. The ibtihalat are also integral parts of Islamic festivities during the two Eids and Ramadan. Focusing on al-Naqshabandi’s ibtihal “My Lord” (Mawlay), this paper discusses the genre of Islamic hymns as a popular culture approach to study Islam as a lived experience based on the inclusion, not the elimination, of difference. To that end, I explore how the ibtihal becomes a domain for contemplating the place of the self in the present moment without the gaze of authority and how this reconfiguration of authority within the self has deep roots in the Islamic notion of “unicity of God” (tawhid). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

23 pages, 369 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Musicalizing the Heart Sutra: Buddhism, Sound, and Media in Contemporary Japan

by Duncan Reehl

Religions 2021, 12(9), 759; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090759 - 13 Sep 2021

Viewed by 3910

Abstract

In Japan, explicitly religious content is not commonly found in popular music. Against this mainstream tendency, since approximately 2008, ecclesiastic and non-ecclesiastic actors alike have made musical arrangements of the Heart Sutra. What do these musical arrangements help us to understand about the formation of Buddhist religiosity in contemporary Japan? In order to answer these questions, I analyze the circulation of these musical arrangements on online media platforms. I pursue the claim that they exhibit significant resonances with traditional Japanese Buddhist practices and concepts, while also developing novel sensibilities, behaviors, and understandings of Buddhist religiosity that are articulated by global trends in secularism, popular music, and ‘spirituality’. I suggest that they show institutionally marginal but publicly significant transformations in affective relationships with Buddhist religious content in Japan through the mediation of musical sound, which I interpret as indicative of an emerging “structure of feeling”. Overall, this essay demonstrates how articulating the rite of sutra recitation with modern music technologies, including samplers, electric guitars, and Vocaloid software, can generate novel, sonorous ways to experience and propagate Buddhism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

14 pages, 3611 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Music, History, and Culture in Sephardi Jewish Prayer Chanting

by Essica Marks

Religions 2021, 12(9), 700; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090700 - 30 Aug 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2786

Abstract

This article presents the study of a Jewish liturgical genre that is performed in main sections of Jewish prayer services. This liturgical genre is called “prayer chanting”. The term refers to the musical performance by the cantor of the prose texts in Jewish prayer services. The genre of prayer chanting characterizes most Jewish liturgical traditions, and its central characteristic is a close attachment of the musical structure to the structure of the text. The article will examine musical, cultural, and historical characteristics of prayer chanting of two Sephardi Jewish traditions and will explain how this liturgical genre reflects historical and cultural features related to these liturgical traditions. The study presented here is based on field work that includes recordings of prayer and interviews of well-known cantors of the two traditions as well as observations in synagogue of the two liturgical traditions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

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15 pages, 3666 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Balinese ‘Call to Prayer’: Sounding Religious Nationalism and Local Identity in the Puja Tri Sandhya

by Meghan Hynson

Religions 2021, 12(8), 668; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080668 - 23 Aug 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4793

Abstract

This article examines the Puja Tri Sandhya, a Balinese Hindu prayer that has been broadcast into the soundscape of Bali since 2001. By charting the development of the prayer, this paper summarizes the religious politics of post-independence Indonesia, which called for the Balinese to adopt the Puja Tri Sandhya as a condition for religious legitimacy in the new nation. The Puja Tri Sandhya is likened to a Balinese “call to prayer” and compared to Muslim and Christian soundings of religion in the archipelago to assert how these broadcasts sonically reify the national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (“Unity in Diversity”), and participate in a sounding of religious nationalism. Although these broadcasts are evidence of a state-sponsored form of religiosity, interviews concerning the degree to which individuals practice the Puja Tri Sandhya point to an element of secularism and position the prayer as an example that challenges the religion versus secularism dichotomy in studies of religious nationalism. This article also examines the sonic components of the Puja Tri Sandhya (when it is sounded, the vocal style, and the gender wayang and genta bell accompaniment), to argue how these elements infuse this invented display of religiosity with authority and facilitate a mediation between technology, space, and local identity. Exploration of the gender wayang accompaniment in particular, further confirms the contrived nature of the Puja Tri Sandhya and demonstrates how technologies used to broadcast the prayer have had a significant impact on the gender wayang musical tradition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

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12 pages, 1202 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Tolerance of Ambiguity: Negotiating Religion and Sustaining the Lingsar Festival and Its Performing Arts in Lombok, Indonesia

by David Harnish

Religions 2021, 12(8), 626; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080626 - 10 Aug 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2430

Abstract

Multiple forces vie to control the narratives of the Lingsar festival, a major annual event initiated about 350 years ago that uniquely brings together the indigenous Muslim Sasak and the migrant Hindu Balinese on Lombok, an island east of Bali in Indonesia. This attention to the festival is not surprising because governments, political and religious figures, commercial interests, and tourist industries compete to define and benefit from such events worldwide. Since 1983, I have noticed a variety of changes in religious beliefs, ritual personnel and protocol, interreligious relationships, sociocultural identities, founding narratives, and performing arts over time. Once, this festival featured beliefs and performing arts that were localized, neither truly Hindu nor Islamic, and ingrained into the natural, ancestralized environment. However, the festival had to Islamize and Sasakize (that is, become more Sasak) to retain relevance among the Sasak, and had to Hinduize and Balinize to remain relevant among the Balinese. Despite these changes and increasing pressures from reformist organizations, the festival continues; in fact, it has grown in popularity and, by 2019, attracted up to 50,000 people. A tolerance of ambiguity—allowing for changing and contradictory artistic narratives, multiple ritual positions and interpretations, new positionings of interreligious relationships, and deviation from public rhetoric—has been crucial to maintain the Lingsar festival into the 21st century. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

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23 pages, 3547 KiB

Open AccessArticle

From Meditation to Bliss: Achieving the Heights of Progressive Spiritual Energy through Kirtan Singing in American Gaudiya Vaishnava Hinduism

by Sara Black Brown

Religions 2021, 12(8), 600; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080600 - 4 Aug 2021

Viewed by 3943

Abstract

Kirtan is a musical worship practice from India that involves the congregational performance of sacred chants and mantras in call-and-response format. The style of kirtan performed within Gaudiya Vaishnava Hinduism is an expression of Bhakti Yoga, “the yoga of love and devotion”, and focuses on creating a personal, playful, and emotionally intense connection between the worshipper and their god—specifically, through words and sounds whose vibration is believed to carry the literal presence of Krishna. Kirtan is one of many Indian genres that uses musical techniques to move participants through a progression of spiritual states from meditation to ecstasy. Kirtan-singing has become internationally popular in recent decades, largely thanks to the efforts of the Hare Krishna movement, which has led to extensive hybridization of musical styles and cultural approaches to kirtan adapted to the needs of a diasporic, globalized community of worshippers. This essay explores the practice of kirtan in the United States through interviews, fieldwork, and analysis of recordings made at several Krishna temples and festivals that demonstrate the musical techniques that can be spontaneously deployed in acts of collective worship in order to create intense feelings of deep, focused meditation and uninhibited, expressive bliss. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music in World Religions)

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Review

Jump to: Editorial, Research

13 pages, 323 KiB

Open AccessReview

Music and Religion: Trends in Recent English-Language Literature (2015–2021)

by Dustin D. Wiebe

Religions 2021, 12(10), 833; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100833 - 6 Oct 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4682

Abstract

This article reviews recent (2015–2021) English-language publications that focus on music in/as/about religion (broadly defined)—including world, folk, and indigenous religious traditions. While research related to Euro–American-based Christian music accounts for more publications than any other single tradition examined, this review intentionally foregrounds religions that are not as well represented in this literature, such as Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, and folk and animistic traditions from around the world. Recurring trends within this literature elucidate important themes therein, four of which are examined in detail: (1) race and ethnicity, (2) gender and sexuality, (3) music therapy (and medical ethnomusicology), and (4) indigenous music. Broadly speaking, recent (2015–2021) publications related to religion, music, and sound reflect growing societal and political interests in diversity and inclusion, yet there remain perspectives, ideas, and ontologies not yet accounted for. The list of references cited at the end of this article represents only those publications cited in the review and a more comprehensive bibliography is available via an open-sourced Zotero group. Full article

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