Music and Ritual

ritualistic music. Music meant or made to enhance ceremonial situations.

liturgy. The body of prescribed texts, acts, and music that constitute the official services of a given religion.

chant. The monophonic singing of a sacred text.

Hinduism. Major ancient, polytheistic world religion practiced primarily in the Indian subcontinent and rooted in the Vedas.

Vedas. Hinduism’s most canonical texts, preserved orally in Sanskrit.

Sanskrit. Classical language of the Indian subcontinent in which the Vedas are preserved.

Brahmin. A member of the Hindu priestly caste.

vikrti. Any of eight standard repeating patterns used by Brahmins in chanting the Vedas.

Judaism. Major ancient, monotheistic world religion originating in Ancient Palestine.

Tanakh. The Hebrew Bible consisting of the Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim, roughly equivalent to the Old Testament.

Hebrew. Ancient semitic language of the Hebrews in which the Tanakh is written.

Shema. The Jewish profession of faith drawn from Deuteronomy and Numbers.

cantillation. Chanting, especially of scripture; often used in reference to Jewish chant.

nigun (plural: nigunim). Any of various melodic gestures used to cantillate the Tanakh.

te’amim. The written accents that symbolize the nigunim.  

Islam. Major, monotheistic religion founded in Saudi Arabia in the seventh century AD by Muhammad.

Koran. The Islamic book of scripture, consisting of Muhammad’s collected teachings.

Arabic. Ancient Middle Eastern language in which the Koran is written.

muezzin. A Muslim crier who sings the adhan.

adhan. The Muslim call to prayer.

minaret. The tower adjoining most mosques from which a muezzin sings the adhan.

Christianity. Major, ancient monotheistic world religion promulgated by Jesus and his followers.

(Vulgate) Bible. The oldest standard edition of the Christian Bible, translated and compiled in Latin around 400 AD by St. Jerome, and the version authorized by the Roman Catholic Church.

Latin. Ancient Roman language in which the Vulgate was written, and the official language of the Roman Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council (1962–65).

Nicene Creed. Christian creed accepted by most Christians around the world, produced initially in Nicea in 325 AD.

Gregorian chant. Large and diverse body of Medieval Latin chants attributed dubiously to Pope Gregory I and representing the official music of the Roman Catholic Church.

basilica. Long rectangular church common during the Middle Ages, when Gregorian chant emerged.

Divine Office. The division of the Catholic liturgy constituting the canonical hours and consisting of the ritual recitation of prayers and chanting of psalms and hymns.

canonical hours. The division of the day into alternating periods of work, prayer, and singing practiced in monasteries since late antiquity.

Mass. The division of the Catholic liturgy consisting of the ritual reenactment of the Last Supper; also a musical genre consisting of musical settings of all five Ordinary chants.

Eucharist. The ritual emblems of Christ’s body and blood, also known as Communion and the Lord’s Supper.

Proper. The portions of Mass that change according to the Catholic calendar.

Ordinary. The unchanging portions of Mass consisting primarily of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.

Credo. The Latin Nicene Creed, sung in each Mass.

neume. Latin for gesture, any of various dots and squiggles that constitute the earliest form of modern Western notation, which originated in the late ninth century AD.

Renaissance. In music, the style-period lasting from about 1450 to 1600 and characterized by emphasis on consonance in harmony and counterpoint.

motet. Single most important polyphonic genre from 1220–1750, most often liturgical.

counterpoint. The art of combining two or more independent melodies in a pleasing way.

a cappella. Of singing, unaccompanied.

imitation. The imitation in a musical voice of the contour of another voice.

imitative polyphony. Polyphony consisting of two or more voices related by imitation.

point of imitation. A melodic phrase treated in strict sequential imitation.

Reformation. Sixteenth-century religious movement that rejected papal authority, precipitating the formation of Protestant churches.

Martin Luther. Protestant reformer who reintroduced vernacular congregational singing into Christian worship and composed and arranged many chorales for that use.

chorale. German term for chant, by which Luther’s sacred congregational songs have been known since the late-sixteenth century.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). German composer long considered among the greatest of all time, noted especially for his contrapuntal mastery, and whose output is regarded as the culmination of the Baroque Era.

St. Thomas Church. Lutheran church in Leipzig where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked from 1723 until his death in 1750.

chorale cantata. A multi-movement work for voices and instruments based on the text and music of a Lutheran chorale.

chorus. Typically, a mixed, often large choir with multiple singers per part, and a composition written for such an ensemble, whether free-standing or a movement of a cantata, opera, or oratorio.

free polyphony. Polyphony consisting of two or more melodically unrelated voices.

Reformation Day. October 31 in the Lutheran calendar, the date when Luther dispatched his Ninety-Five Theses, initiating the Reformation, when Ein feste Burg is prescribed for performance in Lutheran services.

Baroque Era. In music, the style-period lasting from about 1600 to 1750 and characterized by emphasis on the codification of emotional expression in music in accordance with the Doctrine of Affections.

Doctrine of Affections. The belief, prominent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that music could forcibly elicit the various human emotions (or affects).

John Calvin (1509–64). French Reformer who regarded music with some suspicion, permitting only the performance of psalms in his services.

Calvinism. Theological system promulgated by Calvin and emphasizing mankind’s sinfulness and the doctrine of predestination.

metrical psalm. Among Protestants, a psalm versified and set to music for congregational, typically monophonic performance.

lining-out. A call-and-response performance style of congregational singing widely practiced among English-speaking Protestants of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

heterophony. A musical texture in which two voices present the same melody at the same time but with different embellishments.

hymn. A devotional, but not necessarily scriptural, metrical text intended for congregational singing in the vernacular.

Isaac Watts (1674–1748). Prominent English Nonconformist minister whose beautifully composed metrical-psalm and evangelical hymn texts precipitated the widespread adoption of congregational hymnody among English speakers.

evangelicalism. Protestant religious movement originating in the eighteenth century emphasizing salvation by faith through God’s grace rather than by ritual.

First Great Awakening. Period of great evangelical religious fervor among American Protestants that lasted from the 1720s to the 1740s and stimulated congregational hymnody.

Olney Hymns (1779). Collection of evangelical hymns written primarily by British Anglican minister and abolitionist John Newton, among the most important of its type.

shape-note singing/Sacred Harp. An amateur sacred choral tradition founded on the use of shape-note notation and solfege.

a “singing”. A group Sacred Harp singing session, at which congregational songs are performed first in solfege and then with their lyrics.

Second Great Awakening. A second period of great evangelical religious fervor among American Protestants that further stimulated congregational hymnody, including the establishment of shape-note hymnody.

Pentecostalism. A primarily twentieth-century American Protestant movement characterized by zealous preaching, public faith healings, and speaking in tongues (glossolalia) and which witnessed the birth of African American gospel music through the incorporation of secular musical styles into church services.

Thomas Dorsey (1899–1993). The “Father of Gospel Music,” African American composer and long-tenured music minister at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago who created and established African American gospel music in the 1930s

processional. Music meant to accompany a ceremonial procession.

national anthem. A state’s official song, often similar in style to a hymn.

Romantic Era (1815–1900). In music, the style-period lasting approximately from 1815 until 1900.

gamelan. An Indonesian percussion ensemble, consisting largely of gongs and metallophones.

gong. Idiophone in the form of a vertically suspended concave metal disc.

metallophone (saron, gendèr). Any of various slatted metal idiophones that constitute different sections of a gamelan.

bonang. The kettle-shaped metal idiophones that constitute one section of a gamelan.

kendang. Barrel-shaped two-headed membranophone whose player leads a gamelan.

rebab. The Indonesian two-stringed bowed chordophone, which may be included in a gamelan.

colotomic structure. Form in which sections are hierarchically demarcated with variously sized gongs or other idiophones.