Ritual Music Research Articles

Sacred Languages of Pop: Rooted Practices in Globalized and Digital French Popular Music

Abstract Nowadays, popular music artists from a wide range of cultures perform in English alongside other local languages. This phenomenon questions the coexistence of different languages within local music practices. In this article, I argue that we cannot fully understand this issue without addressing the sacred dimension of language in popular music, which entails two aspects: 1) the transitory experience of an ideal that challenges intelligibility, and 2) the entanglement with social norms and institutions. Further to which, I compare Latin hegemony during the Middle Ages and the contemporary French popular music, where English and French coexist in a context marked by globalisation and ubiquitous digital technologies. The case of the Middle Ages shows that religious control over Latin led to a massive unintelligible experience of ritual singing, which reflected a strong class divide and created a demand for music rituals in vernacular languages. In the case of contemporary French popular music, asemantical practices of language are employed by artists in order to explore alternative, sacred dimensions of language that challenge nationhood.

Music and cremation rituals in The Netherlands: A fine-grained analysis of a crematorium’s playlist

Abstract Although music is an important part of cremation rituals, there is hardly any research regarding music and cremations. This lack of research has inspired the authors to conduct a long-term research project, focusing on musical and linguistic aspects of music played during cremations. This article presents the analysis of a playlist consisting of twenty-five sets of music, each consisting of three tracks, used in a crematorium in the south of The Netherlands from 1986 onward. The main objective is to identify the differences and similarities of the twenty-five sets of musical tracks regarding content and musical properties. Consequently, we aim to provide insight in the history of (music played during) cremation rituals in The Netherlands. To analyze the musical properties of the sets, the authors use both a qualitative approach (close reading and musical analysis) and a computational analysis approach. The article demonstrates that a combination of a close reading and musical analysis and a computational analysis is necessary to explain the differences in properties of the sets. The presented multi-method approach may allow for comparisons against musical preferences in the context of current cremations, which makes it possible to trace the development of music and cremation rituals.

The Gnawa Lions: Authenticity and Opportunity in Moroccan Ritual Music, written by Wituslki, Christopher

The Gnawa Lions: Authenticity and Opportunity in Moroccan Ritual Music, written by Wituslki, Christopher

Review: Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt by Hager El Hadidi

Review: Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt by Hager El Hadidi

ジンバブエにおける国家的危機とショナ祭祀音楽の関係 Relationship between National Crisis and Shona Ritual Music in Zimbabwe

ジンバブエにおける国家的危機とショナ祭祀音楽の関係 Relationship between National Crisis and Shona Ritual Music in Zimbabwe

Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt by Hager El Hadidi

Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt by Hager El Hadidi

Исследования по современной музыке в научной школе Валентины Холоповой

Valentina Nikolayevna Kholopova is celebrated for her accomplishments as a specialist in contemporary music, a writer of innovative research works on 20th century musical rhythm, the music of Webern, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Shchedrin, and many other composers. Consequently, the themes of the diploma theses, dissertations and books by her students are predominantly focused on 20th century music, manifesting the emergence of an entire new school of musical research works of that type. It is possible to observe the attention towards well-known composers from the previous century (Stravinsky, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Tishchenko, Vorontsov), but also research has been made on the musical legacy of unduly neglected composers – Sergei Protopopov (Anton Rovner) and Nikolai Obouhov (Nino Barkalaya). Among the composers from other countries studied in the class of Kholopova, for the first time in the USSR and Russia there were works written about Messiaen, Xenakis, Gorecki, Vieru, Mansuryan and groups of composers from West Germany (Lachenmann, Rihm, Schnebel, Trojan, Dadelsen), Hungary (Kurtag, Szollosi, Durko, Lange), as well as jazz and pop music. After completion of their studies, the graduates from the professor’s class wrote numerous topical books in various languages: Ivanka Stoianova wrote about Berio and Stockhausen, Tatiana Frantova – about polyphony in Schnittke’s music, Rosa Sultanova – about contemporary musical rituals among the peoples of Central Asia, Natalia Vlasova – about Schoenberg and Zemlinsky, Elena Mikhalchenkova-Spirina – about Kancheli, Ekaterina Akishina – about Schnittke, Olga Ozerskaya – about Vorontsov, and Andrei Kudryashov wrote a textbook on the theory of musical content. In addition to the aforementioned names, Kholopova’s students include professors Ekaterina Dulova, Dina Kirnarskaya, Boris Gnilov and Irina Lozovaya. Keywords: Russian musicology, academic school, contemporary music, diploma works, dissertations for degrees of Candidate of Arts and Doctor of Arts, monographic works, textbooks.

The bibliography of the winter ritual music of ukrainians: materials and researches (to help a young researcher and teacher)

The purpose of the publication is to collect together all the main publications on the theme "Ukrainian folk music of Christmas and New Year holidays". The lists contain works describing Christmas and New Year habits and rituals, the research assignments of musical folklore and the music score and text materials of the New Year songs and Christmas carols from different regions of Ukraine, as well as from the Ukrainian ethnic territories that are now in the administrative boundaries of the neighboring countries. Another goal along with the primary scientific course is to help teachers of folklore subjects in different educational institutions. An additional short list of the main scien-tific articles and materials recommended is available (addressed specifically for lecturers). Key words: Ukrainian folklore; Winter rituals; Christmas carols and New Year songs; Bibliography; Notography; Folklore and pedagogy.

The Ritual Music of Wana People

Very ancient practice, shamanism is usually found in the nomadic or semi- nomadic cultures. Given the dependence on the hunt for these populations, one of the fundamental roles of the shaman was to mediate between man and nature, especially between men and the lords of the animals that make possible the success of a hunting expedition. Shamanism has, however, shown a great ability to adapt to historical events, managing to keep up to us maintaining its uniqueness. Threatened by the arrival of progress and the world religions, has been able to respond actively and to influence the Western culture, as evidenced by the New Age movement and the presence of shamans in many movies, books and videogames. These fascinating, complex and archaic belief has always attracted the interest of the West, evidenced by historical, literary and academic publications, and it seems that still shamanism still has not exhausted what has to offer the world. In this article I am going to describe which the situation of the Wana religion to the present day is and which the rituals of this culture are. The Wana have two shamanic rituals - the momagu and the molawo ‒that face the disease with music, showing us the central role of music in the ritual life of this community, affirming - once again‒ the importance of music not just to Wana but also to humankind, and its relationship with the hidden world.

“Die Young”: On Pop Music, Social Violence, Self-Censorship, and Apology Rituals

This article examines the response of musicians to social violence, focusing specifically on the phenomenon of hybridized corporate/self-censorship by pop musicians in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, at the end of 2012. Immediately following the shooting, several popular songs with putatively inflammatory titles and lyrics—most notably, Ke$ha’s “Die Young” and Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks”—were pulled from the airwaves, largely in the name of a generalized sensitivity to the emotional needs of the listening public. This action received the vociferous support of the artists themselves, who issued concomitant pro forma apologies for their work. The tacit acknowledgment of the connections between music and acts of violence, the complicity of artists in the censorship or suppression of their own work, and their a posteriori participation in apology rituals are the focus here, with comparisons also drawn between similar acts of social violence—the Columbine school shooting of 1999 in particular—and the calls for and responses to the music censorship that followed.

Staging the Silk Road Journey Abroad: The Case of Dunhuang Performative Arts

Staging the Silk Road Journey Abroad: The Case of Dunhuang Performative Arts

서울 진오귀굿의 음악

서울 진오귀굿의 음악

Music Healing Rituals in Thailand

This paper discusses the music healing rituals from North, Northeast and Southern Thailand. In general, these healing rituals bring together supportive elements from the family, the community and spiritual entities with the shaman as a conductor. Shaman utilizes music in corporate the community as a whole including elicits the support from the spiritual entitles. Traditional music healing process played the role as enticement to recruit spirits, distract the patients from experiencing unpleasant in their body. Even in today’s modern society these healing rituals have persisted, as they are inseparable from these regions’ animistic beliefs system.

Preface

Preface Michael C. Jordan, Editor Two signifcant contemporary works of art that participate in the Catholic artistic tradition, each in its own distinctive way, were presented (coincidentally) within a few blocks of each other in downtown Los Angeles during mid-January 2015: the first performance in the United States of Henryk Górecki’s Fourth Symphony by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Walt Disney Hall, and the first West Coast presentation of Andy Warhol’s Shadows at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art Grand Avenue, described by the museum as “a monumental painting in 102 parts.”1 The Roman Catholic roots of Górecki’s work as a composer are well known; the influence of Andy Warhol’s upbringing as a Byzantine Catholic and his continuing practice as a Catholic have been widely discussed since his death in 1987. There is much drama in the story of the composition of Górecki’s Fourth Symphony, even apart from the oft-told story (but I will not repeat it here) of the surprising rise in popularity starting about 1992 of his Third Symphony: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs composed in 1976. The Fourth Symphony was scheduled for its world premiere in London in April 2010 and for its American premiere in Los Angeles [End Page 5] in January 2011, but the performances were cancelled when Górecki was unable to complete the work because of failing health. He died on November 12, 2010 leaving the work unfinished, and its fate was unknown for several years thereafter. It was eventually determined that the composer had completed the work in piano score, and his son, Mikolaj, who is a composer in his own right, was able to orchestrate the work according to indications of his father’s intentions. The London Philharmonic Orchestra first performed the work in London in April 2014, conducted by Andrey Boreyko, and Boreyko then conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing the work in Los Angeles on January 16–18, 2015. In a talk given prior to the Los Angeles performance on January 17, Boreyko speculated that Górecki was well aware of his failing health and perhaps his impending death as he composed the piece. When asked by interlocutor Christopher Russell about common elements found in Górecki’s Fourth Symphony and Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony (his final symphony), each quoting the funeral march from Wagner’s Siegfried and ending on an A major chord, Boreyko speculated that each symphony was indeed a kind of farewell to life but that the two composers approached the awareness of death in contrasting ways. Noting that in general Górecki did not feel an affinity for the music of Shostakovich, Boreyko suggested that he found a significant contrast between the underlying foundation of Christian hope embedded in Górecki’s symphony and the feeling of despair that he sensed in Shostakovich’s final symphony. Górecki’s Christian faith establishes a key to his Fourth Symphony, in Boreyko’s opinion. While cautiously noting that he did not think the symphony has a necessary program that the listener must follow, Boreyko nonetheless disclosed that after considering the importance of quotations in the work from the funeral march from Wagner’s Siegfried, from Karol Syzmanowski’s Stabat Mater, and from the final movement of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, titled “The Great Gate of Kiev,” he found the work to be “a musical ritual with a deep religious background.” He also suggested [End Page 6] that the work might be thought of as Górecki’s Passion, with sections suggestive of the via dolorosa, the lamentation of the mother, and the Resurrection, among other moments. This account of the symphony so far produces an inaccurate picture of the work as a whole because the elements that most directly suggest the religious background of the composition are embedded within the modernist musical framework that is also an important part of Górecki’s compositional style throughout his career. The work is built on a short initial theme whose notes are derived from the name of Polish-born composer Alexandre Tansman, and much of the first movement involves what music critic Alex Ross...

Influence of Reggae Music on the Economic Activities of EABIC Rastafarians in Jamaica

(2015). Influence of Reggae Music on the Economic Activities of EABIC Rastafarians in Jamaica. Caribbean Quarterly: Vol. 61, Why Jamaica?, pp. 42-59.

Buddhism as Performing Art: Visualizing Music in the Tibetan Sacred Ritual Music Liturgies

Buddhism as Performing Art: Visualizing Music in the Tibetan Sacred Ritual Music Liturgies

“For a While They Live a Few Feet Off the Ground”

In this article, I use ethnographic data and twenty-five interviews collected over a period of four years at the Walnut Valley Festival, an annual folk musicians’ festival, to explore how attendees construct and maintain a meaningful sense of “place.” I argue that place is created through the repetition of traditional rituals that both physically and symbolically transform space into what participants call “home.” Of these, the most important are musical rituals in the form of “jams.” As a cultural performance, and through repeated participation over the years, musical ritual synthesizes the past and present, a merging that generates shared, heightened emotions among participants that leads to states of liminality and communitas. It is through attendees’ continued participation in musical, cultural performance, and the shared meaning, emotion, and memory that it provides that place is created and maintained at the festival.

The Apperception of Musical Creativity: Performance as Ritual, Composition as Self-Realization

Musical invention is defined in this article as a form of inward creativity. The creative acts of musical performance are understood in terms of ritual-like symbolic and stylized actions, and those of musical composition as the mind's enactment of meditation and reflection. This article draws on the relationship between two psychological attributes of musical creativity: the cognitive ones controlled and sustained by the central nervous system, and the emotional attributes that may be understood as a sense of inward reflection. The complex nature of musical creativity suggests further emotional and musical representations accumulated and constructed by the composer or performer. When this occurs, music's distinct character is apperceived as a musical ritual in terms of self-realization, rather than a mere execution of idiomatically constructed musical sequences. Along with present-day research in psychology and perspectives on cognitive neuroscience of creativity, this article brings forth a direct link between musical creativity, ritual, and self-awareness. It develops a theory of the apperception of musical creativity in performance and composition using the notions of ritual and self-realization as mutually inclusive idiosyncrasies of musical experience.

Music listening in families and peer groups: benefits for young people's social cohesion and emotional well-being across four cultures.

Families are central to the social and emotional development of youth, and most families engage in musical activities together, such as listening to music or talking about their favorite songs. However, empirical evidence of the positive effects of musical family rituals on social cohesion and emotional well-being is scarce. Furthermore, the role of culture in the shaping of musical family rituals and their psychological benefits has been neglected entirely. This paper investigates musical rituals in families and in peer groups (as an important secondary socialization context) in two traditional/collectivistic and two secular/individualistic cultures, and across two developmental stages (adolescence vs. young adulthood). Based on cross-sectional data from 760 young people in Kenya, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Germany, our study revealed that across cultures music listening in families and in peer groups contributes to family and peer cohesion, respectively. Furthermore, the direct contribution of music in peer groups on well-being appears across cultural contexts, whereas musical family rituals affect emotional well-being in more traditional/collectivistic contexts. Developmental analyses show that musical family rituals are consistently and strongly related to family cohesion across developmental stages, whereas musical rituals in peer groups appear more dependent on the developmental stage (in interaction with culture). Contributing to developmental as well as cross-cultural psychology, this research elucidated musical rituals and their positive effects on the emotional and social development of young people across cultures. The implications for future research and family interventions are discussed.

Geruststellende klanken: Muziek en crematierituelen Comfort Music: Music and Cremation Rituals

Het crematorium is, onder meer, een rituele ruimte waar mensen elkaar ontmoeten om afscheid te nemen van een dierbare overledene. In het crematorium is veel te zien: de architectuur en inrichting van het gebouw zijn symbolisch rijk. Tijdens het crematieritueel wordt de fysieke en rituele ruimte in sterke mate bepaald door muziek. Muziek is een belangrijk onderdeel van het crematieritueel, maar er is tot nu toe weinig onderzoek naar gedaan. In dit artikel verken ik het crematorium en het crematieritueel vanuit muzikaal perspectief. Ik focus op een van de mogelijke functies van het crematieritueel: troost bieden. Onderzoeksvragen zijn: 1. Hoe kan muziek de luisteraar troosten; 2. Welke muziek klinkt er tijdens het crematieritueel; 3. Biedt deze muziek troost aan de participanten? Ik ga op deze vragen in aan de hand van het zogenoemde ‘Muziekboek’ van het Crematorium Tilburg.