1. Music & Society
Music & Ritual
www.musicstudentinfo.com
Chris Baker
2. Music and Ritual Definition
A ritual is a set of actions, often thought to have symbolic
value, the performance of which is usually prescribed a
religion or by the traditions of a community by religious or
political laws because of the perceived efficacy of those
actions
3. Music & Ritual Examples
Various worship rites, rites of passage, oaths of allegiance,
coronations, presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals,
graduations, club meetings, sports events, Halloween parties,
Christmas shopping and more
4. Music & Society Other Rituals
Many activities performed for concrete purposes eg jury trials,
execution of criminals, are loaded with purely symbolic actions
prescribed by regulations or tradition, and are partly ritualistic in
nature
Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello are
rituals
5. Music & Ritual Ritual Actions
•Hardly any limits to the kind of actions
•Typically involved special gestures and words
•Recitation of fixed texts
•Performance of special music, songs or dances
•Processions, manipulation of certain objects
•Consumption of special food
•Consumption of drink
•Consumption of drugs such as Ganja, Peyote & Ayahuasca
6. Music & Ritual Purpose
Ritual serves diverse purposes including but not limited to:
• Worship
• Purification (with the aim of removing uncleanliness, which may be real or symbolic)
• Atonement
• Dedication
• Education
7. Music & Ritual Religious
• Often used in context with worship performed in a church
• Ritual(s) can vary considerably
• Organized religion
• Non-institutionalized spirituality (shamanism)
• Rituals often have a connection with reverence (express
reverence for a deity or idealized state of humanity)
8. Traditional Musics Compared with Western
Ideas About Music
• The term “music” does not mean the same thing in all
cultures
• Most societies have no concept or word for “music” in a
Western sense
• Participating in music is universal in humans
• Human sound communication outside the scope of spoken
language, exists in all known human societies
• Music has observable effects on its makers and listeners
9. Music & Society Traditional Music
• Musics in traditional societies of Africa, Oceania, Australia,
North and South America, and Asia sound very different from
one another
• Nonetheless, they share certain characteristics and behavior
that, in some respects at least, differentiate them from
present-day ideas about Western music
10. Music & Society Western Music
• Modern Western Music typically formalized melodic &
rhythmic sounds produced by the human voice & instruments
• In small-scale societies music (melodic vocalizing or
drumming) may well be categorized differently
• Music the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, sounds like “humanly
organized sound,” is regarded by its makers as a variety of
sounds shared by nature and animals such as rain, waterfalls,
crickets, and birds, as well as humans
11. Music & Society Emotion
• Music has “emotional” effects on participants, not always
easy to explain
• Ritual is important for passing on information and group
tradition
• Essential in human societies for 99.9% their history
• Rituals accomplish these purposes by shaping and creating
appropriate feelings
• They maintain and transmit from one generation to another
confidence, pride, joyfulness, well-being, resolve, release, and
unification
12. Social Functions of Ritual Music
Display of resources
•Male strength and vigor as in the Suya of Brazil
•Male or Female beauty and skill, as in the East Asian Hmong
•Demonstrate prestige and power, as in the Pacific Northwest
Coast Makah
•Displayed within the group, or shown to a neighboring group
•Parallels in the animal world
•To gain or solidify prestige and power and to acquire mates
13. Social Functions of Ritual Music
Facilitation of courtship
•Like Animals Humans have developed rituals to assess
compatibility
•Hmong males and females sing improvised courtship songs
while under the scrutiny of family, friends, and outsiders
•A courting couple may interact by playing instruments or
moving to music as a substitute for lovemaking
14. Social Functions of Ritual Music
Facilitation of courtship cont
•In the Medlpa of highland New Guinea, beautifully-adorned
couples sit side by side and sway their bodies toward and away
from each other, while moving their heads in parallel, to a
background of adults’ singing
•Music allows lovers to “say things” that might otherwise be
awkward and embarrassing
15. Social Functions of Ritual Music
Rites of passage
•Occur at points of life transitions e.g., birth, puberty, marriage,
death
•Important in many species
•Human rites of passage such as that of child, adolescent, adult,
marriageable or married person, parent, warrior, widow,
member of this or that subgroup
•Mescalero Apache girls in North America are transformed into
the female deity and literally “sung” into womanhood
16. Social Functions of Ritual Music
Relief from anxiety and psychological pain
•To heal illness or resolve dissent
•To provide ‘escape’ from oppression
•To mourn the dead
•Ritual expression of individual emotion that is usually repressed
e.g. in the Bedouin and Thule Eskimo/Inuit
•Provide relief, release, and refuge during troubled times e.g.
Greek women and Karelian women in ritualized lament
•Provide safe passage of the deceased person’s spirit
•Outlet for individual pain, fear, grief and anger
17. Social Functions of Ritual Music
Promotion of group cooperation and prosperity
•Ceremonies that entertain and celebrate and express feelings
of pleasure and well-being, cheerfulness, and fellowship
•All rituals serve to maintain the wellbeing of the society and its
individuals
•Ceremonies that incite a group to hate or attack another group
promote cohesion and cooperation among participants
•Cooperative rituals are integral to a thriving society
18. Social Functions of Ritual Music
Control and channeling of individual aggression
•Some rituals It may be perceived as more or less “aggressive”
•Maring ritual is similar to an animalistic ritualized territorial
display
•Eskimo song duels (nith songs) and taunts, serve as ritually
acceptable ways of resolving a grudge or dispute
19. Music & Ritual Music Today
Modern Music
•Western classical music and jazz has developed over the past
two centuries in an aesthetic or “high art” tradition
•Music is considered “for its own sake” & listened to with full
attention in special settings, or on recordings in the home
•Music today is mainly removed from its original roles
•Different from music in traditional societies
•Possible to detect ties to its initial roots
