Some of the nuances in music

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All Set For Twellium National Qur'an Recitation Competition

I love reading about variability in the world and learning about the differences between different cultures. Anne Rasmussen spoke of the nuances of Indonesian Islamic Music and this emphasized aurality's value in Islam. The Qur'an is respected as "the last great revelation from a purely oral culture, and is best apprehended through aural criteria," (52). What I though was interesting was the fact that there are competitions for Qur'an recitation and how these competitions are judged. The competitors are judged to their breath control, diction, melodic construction, ornamentation, and performance demeanor which is similar to a singing competition. It's interesting that terms and tools that are tied to {music is used to interpret indigenization of music in this region," (21). The vastness of any religion combined with the vastness of music creates a creative setting that is uniquely beautiful.



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Music is so great. The individualization of the sense of hearing was introduced in the hearing group's presentation, but the complete truth to this is so much to comprehend. There are so many subtleties in sound that the word music "does not begin to represent the real differences and conceptual nuances between song, instrumental music, and musical function than operate in [all] languages," (26). There are so many sounds, songs, and musical trills from video games that make me nostalgic. I was eating lunch one time in Chase and a Persona 5 song started playing on the loudspeakers. I was dumbfounded that this was being played in public (despite its undeniable jazzy catchiness) so I stood up and by standing up I realized that one of my friends was also a Persona fan. Every single time I have cried or been washed with emotion in the past 3 years was due to a musical score. Despite my immense tie of music my emotions, that might not be the case at all for others. The sense of hearing is so varied and individualized because it is so variable.

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausApril 15, 2020 at 8:37 AM

    Music IS so great. I think sometimes we take for granted how interwoven into our lives, our memories, our relationships, and our sense of well-being in general. I was surprised how emotional I was to hear that singer/songwriter John Prine died of Covid-19 last week, but then again not so surprised, as my wife had introduced me to his music early in our relationship, and it had become a kind of soundtrack to our relationship over time. Or hearing how all the different sounds you and your classmates shared at our last Zoom class meeting, and why it resonated with you was also really moving. But it's also clear from the Qur'an recitation practices Rasmussen discusses that takes work, intentionality, some art to produce sounds that can have the effect of hearing a Qur'an recitation or Persona 5 sound. Or better, that we humans have in our power to make moving, meaningful sounds, in addition to the random sounds we might hear and have heard - waves crashing, the jingle of a dog collar, that have developed meaning for us because of the contexts, and the different associations we have come to make with them.

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