Music and Religious Experience

Abstract

Abstract Building from case studies on the Black gospel tradition, biblical chant in contemporary Judaism, and a variety of Islamic traditions, this chapter shows how musical sound’s combination of phenomenal intensity and transformational capacity makes it an ideal instrument for organizing interpersonal and interworldly experience. The first section engages with the practice of “tuning up,” the formal logic for the Black gospel tradition, which resonates with the human voice’s place as the primary intentional object in a host of religious traditions. Then, the chapter listens to accounts of vocal experience in Jewish cantillation and Qur’anic recitation, arguing that the acceptance and avoidance of musical ontology in these contexts exemplifies the role that valuative and interpretive habits of perception play in musical experience. The final section considers Islamic and Black Christian varieties of ecstatic dance, both of which view the entire human body as a musical instrument, a vehicle of being-in-two-worlds.