Smells and Bells

 In Anne Rasmussens's book  Women, the Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia, she brings up how oral traditions are still important regardless of literacy rate.  I have never thought about this before as a topic. Both reading books and listening to music are very important to me. I couldn't imagine not being able to do both those things.   Her point was that music and telling stories is still very important even in societies where most people can read. I have to agree because, in our society where literacy rates are very high, we still tell stories verbally to each other.

  I think the idea that most reciters of the Qur’an don’t understand the words is really important. I feel like most people would assume that if you don’t know what the words literally mean then you can’t understand the meaning behind them but that’s not true. Prayers, songs, and even prose is usually not about the true meaning of all the words, but rather how it makes you feel when hearing it. I assume this is true for many people who pray, whether it be in a language you are fluent in or not; the prayer is not about the specific words that you say, it’s about the emotion and meaning you convey with those words. I feel similarly when it comes to music. There will be times when I’m listening to music and I find myself singing along to a song I didn’t know I knew the words to. If you asked me to tell you the words to the song at some other point I wouldn’t know them, but in the moment, I do. It’s not that I just forget the words when I’m not hearing the song, it’s more of a connecti...

  Young Girl Reading the Quran  is a painting by Osman Hamdi Bey.           The first thing that caught my attention in our hearing reading was learning of women's key role in Qu'ran recitation in Rasmussen's writing in  Women, The Recited Qur’an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia.  Due to the nature of their voices, women are more able to produce the sounds needed for Qu'ran recitation, the specific vocal patterns, and nasally tones.  Not only this but women are also involved in schooling regarding the Qu'ran; both are crucial roles within a religious context. While one is needed for worship, the other is also necessary to teach the youth with the religion the importance of the sacred text.      This was very interesting because women are not usually seen as important figures in many religions, or their importance is not broadcast broadly enough. In this case, it's interesting to see their significance in a faith that i...

  The creation of Music I believe has been a quintessential production in humanity's history. It is a phenomena that has taken a plethora of forms globally, and over time has become central to several religious, social and personal testaments. For it to become such a massive, influential form of communication and expression, there has to be something about it that appeals the human condition. The answer in my opinion, is the vibrations. Vibrations that are not just created through instruments, but those that are also created through vocalization of sounds over different pitches and notes.  Rasmussens discourse on the unique practice of Qu'ranic recitation by Indonesian Women took me back to thinking about chanting and how it's a revered practice in several religions. A couple years ago, I was really into the effect different vibrations have on the human body, and my somewhat in depth research led me to the conclusion that vibrations heard and creations have the ability to s...

     In  Women, The Recited Qur'an and Islamic Music in America Rasmussen discusses the differences between conventional Indonesian music and Qur'an recitation. The author explains that reciting the Qur'an is not considered to be music and these distinctions give it a more divine sound, and bring the listener and reciter closer to God. In her book Rasmussen provides two terms that are used to describe different ways of interacting with sound and states that the Qur'an is an active manifestation of these terms in everyday life. There is, " Aurality"  which implies that the listener is not only listening but "taking it to heart" she explains that it is a multisensory and kinesthetic way of experiencing the sound. Which I thought was really interesting because we all have probably gotten goosebumps before when listening to a song we like, or have been able to describe a song in a way that doesn't relate to sound, which could be called multisensory a...

When seeing examples of Qur’an recitation, I could not help but think of my own experiences with contemporary Christian worship music. The concept of Aurality is incredibly interesting to me. The thought of  an encompassing experience with worship and music. Beyond just the sound or lyrical composition, but a complete participation in the practice. With this distinction in mind, it often, in my experience, feels as if some Christian worship music works through the channel of “Orality” rather than “aurality.” This became even more apparent to me when watching the videos of the Qur’an recitation in the Indonesian tradition. I could see this channel of Aurality and this idea of “taking it to heart” rather than just hearing. As the Qur’an recitation is placed in the framework of a melodic and timbred performance, it becomes musical.  To me, music is not just heard but is felt throughout the entire body. Rhythm and movement are inextricably connected to music and without it, the e...

   Music is essential in our everyday lives and is tied so closely to our identity, and in many cases to our   culture. Rasmussen speaks of Islamic music and focuses on Islamic music in Indonesia and how it compares to Islamic music around the world. When reading her work, I could not help but relate it to Jorge Drexler's TED Talk on Poetry, Music and Identity and the lack of purity that exists within the music that we have linked to our religion, culture and identity.  Drexler takes us through the history of these songs, how they have developed from one another. The Milonga is claimed as being Uruguayan- but its characteristic beat originates from Africa. It travelled from Persia to Spain and five centuries later to America through the arrival of enslaved peoples. During this same time, the Balkans had been encountering the Roma Scale that gave birth to klezmer music that Ukrainian Jewish people took to Brooklyn, NY. In Brooklyn, a heavily Polish, Ukrainian, Ar...

The soundscape of Indonesia, as Rasmussen describes it, is so much more different than it tends to be in the US, with loud public sounds being accepted and ubiquitous. Many of the sounds that are described as being familiar in Indonesia are not something I could easily imagine from experience myself, but one thing that seemed familiar in at least a sense was the concept of Ramadan Music. During Ramadan even the Indonesian musicians who don't typically create religious music will create music for Ramadan. One could consider that a familiar thing happens in the United States around Christmas. The state of Christmas Music isn't always religious, at least in the sense that most Americans would tend to think of. There are a lot of songs that are basically just secular pop songs that evoke the images of snow or Santa Claus, but there are plenty of more overtly religious songs that usually share the radio waves with them, which is hardly the case for the rest of the year. The realm of...

 Rasmussen repeatedly mentions the idea that in Indonesia, Arabic is largely used only as a language for prayer and reading the Quran and, even outside the stricter definitions of prayer, it's pretty much only ever used in religious Muslim contexts. I was actually surprised by how much time she spent explaining this, going on to say that many Indonesians don't even understand Arabic despite using it in religious contexts, because it was a pretty easy thing for me to understand since, unsurprisingly, I have at least a similar relationship with Hebrew. I could tell you the literal translations of maybe a dozen Hebrew words, on a good day. Hebrew is so associated with prayer for me that sometimes I forget people actually speak it (I say, knowing people that speak it). For another religion class, I had to watch the livestream of a church service (they were protestants of some kind, idk) and I remember being so totally baffled because I could not tell the difference between when the...