Smells and Bells

As we have discussed in class and as Rasmussen also describes in her book, “Arabic flavored” Islam tends to be much more publically patriarical, while Indoneisan Islam includes and appreciates women in their islamic traditions, practices and beliefs. This generality kind of reminded me of christianity amongst white people vs christianity among black people in America.  Christianity by whites was often forced upon and used to oppress black people especially during slavery times and now just a few generations later many black families hold strong christian beliefs, which seems counterintuituve to many. I do not speak for anyone whatsoever, but from what I have experienced and witnessed many have in turn used it to persevere through the effects of that oppression, to restore and keep faith.  Wildly famous rapper and producer Kanye, for example, openly discusses his faith in his music and other media, often symbolizing Jesus and religion as safety and motivation to get through ra...

All my life I’ve attended a catholic church. During church, I have been used to hearing the English language in a way to express the word of the Lord. Except, it usually stops there. For one hour every Sunday, I listen to a priest talk about God and the lessons we can adopt into our own lives. The music, at least in my church, is generally reserved and not too exciting. The performance of language outside of the church seems to stop when we walk out that door. We take the lesson and think about it. Some may apply it to their lives and some may forget about it when they get back home.  However, Islam has a beautiful relationship with the performance of language. I see their relationship with their spiritual journey with hearing as one of a kind. They truly listen to musical techniques and aesthetics with the Arabic language. Anne Rasmussen wrote in her book, Rethinking Women, Music, and Islam , that music is almost part of “almost all rituals, programs, competitions, and fes...

Rasmussen says that Indonesians use the term "music that breathes or has the scent of Islam." Discuss. 

Muslim people engaged in Qur’an recitation in Indonesia would never describe what they are doing as music. Islam has a complicated relationship with music, and even beyond that the Indonesian definition of music require instruments. However, Anna Rasmussen claims that the recitation she is studying is a form of music. We discussed this in class, which made me wonder at what point chanting becomes music. I think the answer lies in the concept of the “festivalization of religion” that Rasmussen brings up in chapter four. There is a fine line between ritual and art. First, I do not believe that most people would describe their own rituals as a form of art. The application of that label requires an outsider’s perspective in many cases. Second, the Indonesian government encourages the performance of religion in a way that transforms ritual into art. This may be how Qur’an recitation can become music. When recitation becomes a public event and a competition, the intention behind it is tran...

While reading the chapter “Celebrating Religion and Nation; The Festivilization of the Qur’an,” I found myself thinking, ‘isn’t this a little sacrilegious?’ Making Qur’anic recitation into a huge competition (into many huge competitions)? As Rasmussen puts it, the “Festivalization” of religion demonstrated in these recitation competitions combines religion and state authority. “Islamic arts…” Rasmussen argues, “are manifested as authentic Indonesian national praxis” (126). This along with state and corporate sponsorship of these recitation competitions had me thinking that this kind of recitation no longer seems very religious. I thought, if this kind of traditionally religious practice is being performed for monetary gain, personal glory, or upward social mobility, it cheapens or erodes the original intent of the practice. But thinking more specifically in terms of the sensory information we’re focused on in this class, the acts of learning, performing, and perfecting Qur’anic recita...

Our conversation with Professor Allen, expressed the common misconception of the oppression of women in traditional cultural practices. In Ann Rasmussen’s book, it is clear that women hold an important role in the traditional Qur’an recitation and Islamic music in Indonesian, and it is in fact the more modern musical methods that exclude women.   Rasmussen’s writings present the reader with the idea that the modernization within Indonesia is transforming the cultural gender roles of Islamic men and women.  This transformation is not one that is necessarily positive, because it is changing the previously traditionally egalitarian gender roles.  We saw this in the videos on Tuesday, which showed recitation and more “traditional” music groups as allowing the inclusion of women, whereas the more “pop” style group was solely men.  In chapter 6, “Rethinking Women, Music, and Islam, Rasmussen discusses the Islamic feminism, inspired ...

The conversation facilitated by Professor Allen on Tuesday was very illuminating in terms of what we've been discussing in Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia . I think allt he different types of recitation and music we've listened to in the last week provide a lot of examples of Professor Allen's points. The video we watched at the beginning of class today is a perfect example. Last class we talked about the creation of space with music. The Islamic Indonesian performers in this piece created a very informal, communal space featuring drums, electric guitar and other musical components that one wouldn't immediately associate with a religious performance. The audience participated fully and it was as if there was a conversation happening between the performers and the audience throughout the musical parts. The previous clips we listened to and watched seem to illustrate some different points. Professor Allen talked about some ethnomusicologi...

Jakarta City Central      In her book Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia, Anne Rasmussen discusses the soundscape of major Indonesian cities such as Jakarta. She mentions that she learned about the world through it's noises: the honking and clanging of traffic, motors of delivery motorcycles, vendors, idophones, radio, televisions, etc. She describes how the architecture is open and the walls are porous "rendering the outside world ever-present in the domestic sphere" (38). In some sects of the Indonesian culture it is believed that silence leaves you vulnerable to the spirit world. Therefore to ward of the evil spirits the city is covered in light and overlapping sound. Shops in southeast shopping malls would point their speakers into the hallway to entice people to come into their store. This leads to the generation of competitive music. When Rasmussen was in Central Java her host would loudly broadcast the radio all night so that the eve...

Rasmussen's description of the "Public Soundscape" really brought the noisy atmosphere of Jakarta to life and clearly portrayed the contrast between the lifestyle in Indonesia and the lifestyle of those living in rural America. She describes the buildings themselves as being porous, inviting in all of the sounds from outdoors into the private lives of people in their homes. The concept of being willingly to mix the noise of daily life is completely polar to the Western concept of noise, which is, to avoid it even at high costs. She gave a particularly heart-warming description, noting that the culture of sharing your personal sounds at a high volume: songs, boomboxes, radios, conversation, is a way of showing your inclusivity of everyone. It allows for a feeling of community of unity when everyone is sharing in the same sensory experience. I myself, grew up in in the middle of the woods. We couldn't even see our closest neighbors from our window and the only sounds ...

This week we've been talking about whether or not Qur'an recitation is actually 'music.' We seemed to come to the conclusion on Tuesday that it's not necessarily music, but uses musical components, strategies and performative elements in order to effectively communicate a reverent and thought-provoking recitation of Islam's sacred text. Do we have anything similar in other religions? JBK mentioned that he chants Torah, and mentioned that there are specific melodies associated with reciting certain aspects of scripture. I come from a Roman Catholic background. While I don't always agree with some of the practices or some of the archaic rulings in the Bible, the aesthetic component of Catholicism, specifically Catholic Mass, is something I definitely appreciate. And singing is something done very often within Catholic tradition, in a very reverent way which makes me immediately draw similarities with Qur'an recitation. I grew up, from a very young age,...