Transcript Music and Spirituality

An Introduction to Music as Social Experience
Chapter 6: Music and Spirituality
Music and Spirituality
• Music used to enhance spiritual experience
• Different religious traditions:
• Music used to quiet mind and body
• Music used to excite mind and body
• Focus may be on words or melody or rhythm
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Questions for listening:
• Who are the people performing?
• What cultural and religious traditions are associated with the
performers?
• How does the music represent, strengthen spiritual traditions?
• What is more important: sound or intention?
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Tibetan Buddhist Chant
• Chanting as meditation, vehicle to spirituality
• Highly repetitive chants focus on a single idea
• Vocal technique: harmonic singing
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Yamantaka [excerpt], chanted by the Gyuto Monks
• Single monk’s voice begins, gravelly and deep
• Soon joined by more voices
• Low fundamental tone and high-pitched overtones
• Synthesized drone tones added by record producer
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“Amazing Grace”
• Musical testament to Christian doctrine of salvation
• Text written by John Newton (1725-1807)
• Melody from pre-existing tune: “New Britain”
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“Amazing Grace” performed by
Bernice Johnson Reagon
• Lining out: words and melody introduced, repeated with
embellishment
• First half of verse lined out
•Syllabic, narrow melodic range
•Melody implied, not exact
• First half of text repeated, now
• Melismatic, expanded melody
• Free rhythms, improvised
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“Amazing Grace” performed by
the Robert Shaw Festival Singers
• Triple meter
• Homophonic texture
• A cappella (no instrumental accompaniment, voices only)
• Verses alternate:
• Tenor soloist, with choral accompaniment
• Full chorus
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“Amazing Grace” performed by
the Old Harp Singers of Eastern Tennessee
• Shape-note singing: songbooks use shapes to represent different
scale tones
• “Sacred Harp” (natural voice) vocal timbre often strident, shrill
• Leader begins, choir follows slightly later
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Music in the Early Christian Church:
Medieval Period
• Plainchant
• Intended to connect singers with the sacred
• Sung in Latin
• Composed anonymously, oral tradition
• Monophonic texture
• Rhythmically free (non-metric)
• Mostly step-wise (conjunct) melodic contours
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Plainchant: Kyrie eleison from Missa ‘cum jubilo’
• Free, flowing rhythms: without meter
• Conjunct melodic contour
• Words sung in melismatic style:
• Many pitches for a single syllable
• Melismas allow for assimilation of spiritual message
• Three sections: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison
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Music in the Catholic Church: Renaissance Period
• The Mass
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Daily service established in Medieval Period
Fixed sequence of prayers, readings, rituals
Used to present, with modifications
Includes Communion
• Some Mass texts the same daily (Ordinary texts)
• Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei
• New musical settings (polyphonic)
• Some texts change daily, according to Church calendar
(Proper texts)
• Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Sequence,
Offertory, and Communion
• Plainchant settings, as in Medieval Period
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Kyrie from the Pope Marcellus Mass by Giovanni
Pierluigi da Palestrina
• Six independent voice parts
• Soprano, Alto, Tenor I, Tenor II, Bass I and Bass II
• Sung a cappella
• Metrical rhythms give sense of forward motion
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Three sections:
• Kyrie eleison
• Imitative polyphony
• Voice parts enter one at a time, in imitation
• Section ends with voices converging, sustained harmony
• Christe eleison
• Three voice parts begin in homophonic texture
• Independent voices enter: imitative polyphony
• Kyrie eleison
• Imitative polyphony
• Voice parts enter one at a time
• Section ends with sustained harmony
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Music of the Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
• Began Protestant Reformation with “Ninety-five Theses”
• Wrote chorales to replace plainchant in Lutheran worship
• Chorales
• Strophic songs with singable tunes
• Sung by congregation
• Texts in vernacular (Luther’s language: German)
• Tunes from Catholic tradition or secular music
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St. Matthew Passion (1739) by Johann Sebastian Bach
• Oratorio: unstaged, uncostumed musical play
• Biblical story of Jesus’s last days, told by Evangelist
• Vocal soloists as characters:
• Evangelist (narrator), Jesus, Pilate, Judas, others
• Choruses as soldiers, disciples, crowd
• Prominent use of chorale: “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”
• Four phrases: AABC form
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The Yoruba of Nigeria
• Large, influential ethnic group in Nigeria
• Yoruba religion brought to the Americas by slaves
• Drummed music central to Yoruba worship
• Drums “speak” rhythmic and melodic inflections of Yoruba
language
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“Eleggua” from the album Sacred Rhythms of Cuban
Santería
• Oríkì (praise poem): Èsù látopa, Èsù gongo
• Bàtá drums of various sizes, pitches
• Iyá ilú (mother drum) gives birth to sonic/spiritual energy
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The Mevlevi Sufi Order
• Honors Persian poet, philosopher, mystic
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi (1207-1273)
• Rituals emphasize music to achieve spiritual union with God
• Samā’ ceremony symbolic of soul’s passage to God
• Ayin-i şerif or mukabele (spinning dance)
• Music is monophonic or heterophonic
• Melodies are lengthy, rhythmically complex
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Naat-i Sherif (excerpt) taqsim and peşrev
• Instruments:
• Ney (end-blown flute)
• Ud and tanbur (bowed and plucked lutes)
• Kanun (zither)
• Kudüm (kettledrums)
• Cymbals
• Taqsim: non-metrical instrumental improvisation
• Peşrev: instrumental composition accompanying ritual walk
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Yom Kippur, Jewish Day of Atonement: “Kol Nidre”
Yom Kippur, Jewish Day of Atonement: “Kol Nidre”
• 24-hour Holy Day focusing on repentance
• “Kol Nidre” (“All Vows”) prayer begins service
• Request for forgiveness of sins and renewal
• Service ends with shofar (ram’s horn)
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Kol Nidre in g minor, opus 39 [excerpt] (1938) by Arnold Schoenberg
Kol Nidre in g minor, opus 39 [excerpt] (1938) by
Arnold Schoenberg
• Narrator’s text heard simultaneously with polyphony in
woodwinds and strings
• March-like orchestral rhythms in dialogue with narrator
• Chorus joins narrator in text: “We repent”
• Orchestral music becomes more dissonant and insistent
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