A. Rasmussen Aurality and Orality

By -
I will admit that the concept of musical theory does not excite me. I've never truly had the patience to try to understand how songs and recitations are structured and formatted. However, I will admit that I somewhat enjoyed learning more about Quran recitations. To begin with, the concept of 'music' does not differentiate the concepts between "songs, instrumental music, or musical function" (Rasmussen 26). What that means to me is that anything capable of making a sound could be considered 'music'. However, what particularly caught my eye was the explanations of aurality and orality. Aurality being defined as awareness of the way sound is experienced. Take for example, a heavy metal fan banging their head up and down in rhythm with the song. The aggressive sound making the listener respond to it in a somewhat aggressive manner.
Image courtesy of www.ultimateclassicrock.com Orality on the other hand is the activation of the text into a measured and melodic performance in time and space. In a nut shell, thought and oral expression as way of communication without literacy. If I may use the concept of Beavis and Butthead as an example of orality, it may possibly be explained furthur. A sterotypical heavy metal song contains anti-authoritative values where one's primal rage should not be subdued by modern day society. A message that the titular duo no doubt latches onto due to their anti-authority lifestyles and general lack of literacy skills. Rasmussen's study of Quran recitations makes more sense when the religious and social nature of the Middle East is understood, but they are universal concepts that apply to not just all types of music, but all types of sound.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The most primitive sense

By -
Image
Smell the Flowers by Kirsten Star Smell, to me, is the most primitive sense. When most mammals are born, they immediately can recognize their mother’s smell and form an attachment to that smell. Mammals like puppies are almost entirely limited to only the sense of smell until they develop more of their other senses. The sense of smell also becomes the most primitive when considering humans and the phenomenon of perfume. For years, humans hunted certain animals for the purpose of obtaining the musk produced in the anal gland. This musk in small doses can act as an aphrodisiac when put into a perfume even though it has incredibly primitive origins. Though most of Western culture has an aversion to smells considered gross or undesirable, the wealthiest of women are still willing to pay heavy prices to spray a smell once obtained from the anal glands of other animals. The sense of smell is not something that humans can control and adjust but rather it is only changed by evolution over
Read more

Cannibalism and Symbolism

By -
Symbolism plays an important role in religious ceremonies because people cannot have the divine being where they want him all the time. So they start creating ways to be in touch with God. Such as in Christianity, eating bread is symbolized to be eating God-made flesh. There are similar rituals in Judaism where they eat the food of God. A big difference between taste and the other senses is that the object that is being sensed is internalized, whereas all the other senses use an external sensation. Taste cannot extend anywhere like the other senses can. This allows the humans to have no barrier between the divine (symbolized as food) and themselves. This is the closest they can get to God, but internalizing Him.  This thought of getting the closest they can to someone by ingesting and gaining power from it led my mind to wander to the thought of serial killers that also happen to be cannibals. I know that it might be a stretch, but there are some similarities. I als
Read more

Wrap-Up Post

By -
Image
Alright, let’s tie this up in a nice little bow. I genuinely did not know what to expect coming into this class. The extent of my knowledge of the senses comes from elementary school when we had to make it a little song to get the information through our tiny heads. Beyond that, everything seemed pretty cut and dry. We have five senses. We need to use all of them to survive. It’s as simple as that. I did not know how there was enough to talk about the senses to fill an entire college course, especially one specifically regarding the relationship between the senses and religion. But the fact that we were barely able to fit all the content in before the semester ended proves just how wrong I was. Let’s talk about why that is and what some of the things I learned were. First off, even the most basic assumption about the senses, that there are five of them, was questioned immediately. The sixth sense may not have been as clearly defined as the other senses, but there was certainly a lot to
Read more