The Multi-Sensory Nature of Music Rituals

Music rituals are events that cultures around the world use to celebrate, initiate, cure, or commemorate. These rituals create changes in the moods, emotions, and mental lives of their participants by providing an immersive experience, comprised of elements in each of the sensory modes: aural, kinaesthetic, conceptual, olfactory, visual, psychological. These function in tandem to provoke the senses, often leading to a sensory overload that facilitates the alterations of consciousness necessary for religious initiations, but also used in music festivals, raves, and rites of passage. Of all the sensory modes, music is central because it has a tremendous ability to influence us, to shift our mood and to entrain us to its rhythms. The modern study of musicology from the time of Blacking (1971, p.95) has maintained that music cannot be separated from its cultural context, its meaning and purpose must be considered within its cultural frame.  When this context is taken into consideration and when paired with other sensory modes, music contributes powerfully to a holistic technology for altering states of mind and body. Music’s use within rituals suggests that music cannot be separated from the context in which it is experienced, and thus, other ritual elements are equally important for understanding its impact and effectiveness.

Aural elements

Whether it is the sound of beating drums, voices harmonising, sacrificial animals awaiting their fate, or people chatting and socialising, each ritual sound plays a role in creating the aural mood of ritual. Aural stimulation is so important that certain tribes, like the Wagogo peoples of central Tanzania, use polyphonic singing as a sonic anaesthetic to alleviate the pain of circumcision during coming-of-age rituals for boys (Vallejo 2007, p.12). We can all attest to the ability of sound to override our other senses. In movies, we prioritise sound for giving us the cues necessary to determine the mood of the action on screen. In music festivals, the loud amplification of sound serves to envelop our bodies and minds so that we may enter wholly into its sonic environment, a critical part of the entrainment process. Entrainment in music refers to rhythmic synchronisation observed between individuals in response to a rhythmic signal, which impacts both the body and the brain (Phillips-Silver & Keller, 2012, p.1). Entrainment is the way that our bodies and minds ‘lock’ with the music, a process that unites the music with our nervous system and sense of perception.

There are many theories of how this occurs based upon scientific evidence of biological alterations in our bodies and brains. Maria Witek (2017, p.138) describes how music is dispersed across the mind and body, and that during entrainment we fill in the musical gaps, contributing to the overall experience of the musical composition. Thus, through entrainment we become one with the music, adding to it with our bodies and minds. Michael Winkelman (2011, p.38) discusses how entrainment produces altered states by activating the pre-conscious processes of the ancient reptilian and paleomammalian brain, resulting in new forms of knowledge and intense emotion. These effects are ingrained in the music rituals of traditional societies by using techniques that enhance entrainment. Edward Large (2005, p.93) found that entrainment occurs when a stimulus and its source begin to approach smaller musical cycles, a musical technique found commonly in types of West African and Afro-Cuban possession rituals. This suggests that entrainment is necessary for achieving transcendent states, enabling synchronisation of the central nervous system to musical rhythm and form. The ability to create entrainment is an art rather than a science, and such skills are prised in cultures who value such states. Often these elevated experiences correspond with divine communication, giving credence to religious beliefs and strengthening social bonds.

Kinaesthetic elements

Dance is one of the most common ways that rituals incorporate the body during rituals. Other forms include bodily acts, such as prostrations, sacrifices, purification acts, and prayers, each requiring nuanced behaviours from the body. These bodily acts serve the ritual by ensuring participation from the community, enhancing the chance of altered states and profound spiritual experiences. Dance is so enmeshed with music that it is often considered an extension of it. In Afro-Cuban Santeria, the earthy manifestation of orishas (gods) are personified through dance and are one of the highest outcomes of its rituals. During these rituals, music mimics the traits of the deity to be manifested. The music summons the orisha, which occurs once the god is manifested as possession in the body through dance and movement.  

Conceptual elements

Rituals organise their activates around concepts, based upon cultural beliefs and ideologies that authenticate the ritual and its outcomes. A ritual narrative gives meaning to the symbols and practices and offers the community a common philosophy. One type of narrative in possession rituals is that the god will manifest in human form through music rituals. Initiations aim to make these relationships permanent, using narratives that suggest that union with the deity is not only possible, but is culturally sanctioned and preferable, believed to heighten the life and abilities of the devotee.

These narratives provide meaning within ritual, and as with music and dance elements, provide a conceptual basis for integrating the mind into the processes of ritual. The stimulus starts long before the ritual when a devotee is taught the cultural beliefs, but intensifies leading up to ritual as cultural beliefs are made personal and brought into individual context. At this stage, the belief is ingrained and further embodied through active participation in ritual. Hence, the ideology is embodied and manifested through the process of ritual, in real-time,  as the devotee becomes an integrated member of the community.

Electronic music festivals have their own conceptual narratives, sometimes spiritual, as with African American and Latin clubbers who state that going to house music nightclubs is akin to “going to church”, a blurring of the lines between the sacred and secular (Martin, 2013, p.87). At other times, these  electronic rituals may lack spiritual or traditional religious foundations, having cultural narratives that propagate pleasure-seeking , consumerism, and hedonism- a different kind of narrative but no less powerful at inducing self-realisation and obtaining a ‘spirituality of life’ (St John  2007 p.14). These narratives provide the cultural meaning that imbue rituals with their power, syncing the minds of members into harmony with suggested aims and outcomes as self-prophesies.

Olfactory elements

Ritual provides all manner of smells to add to the narrative and to induce sensory overload. These smells may include the sweetness of incense, the scent of fruit and food offering, the blood of sacrificial animals, or the sweat of people in dance. These elements serve to extend the sensory experience of ritual, adding to the sacredness of the event, and are powerful indicators for inducing sensory overload.

Visual symbols

Visual symbols, icons, altars, decorations, colours, foods, and artworks all support the cultural narrative and give the ritual its specific aesthetic design. These visual elements may symbolise the transformation to be provided by the ritual, or represent the colour and nature of its deities. It may serve to enhance the ritual acts of offering and sacrifice,  while also providing a central environment for the ritual to occur. Rituals make use of visual elements to provide symbolic meaning, making rituals a conglomeration of symbols in various forms. The symbols aid the ritual design and aesthetic, while also reenforcing the cultural narrative.

The dual nature of the visual symbols makes them psychological tools that facilitate sensory overload. Visual symbols provoke a deeper contemplation, ensuring that participation is deeply subjective. The visual symbols provide the means for uniting the ritual with deeper psychological function, enabling ‘seeing through’ the symbol to enhance cultural meaning and spiritual significance. Symbols may conjure a spirit otherworld in which sacrifices are directed, and where individual or communal transformation is initiated.  Each symbol serves to reinstate the cultural objectives and activate them within the mind and bodies of devotees.

Psychological elements

Each of the above-mentioned elements has a psychological dimension, making this the core feature of ritual process. We can tell the difference between a well performed and tired ritual through its ability to affect the psychology of the individual and community. Dead rituals that have long lost their impact, providing only lip service that don’t resonate deeply with the minds of members. On the other hand, powerful rituals create psychological changes in their subjects by inducing strong contemplation and experiences that arouse the emotions and invigorate the mind.

Music is important for its ability to activate the emotions, cause bodily entrainment, and to symbolise within its form the ontological transformations required. This art of symbolising the initiation to be achieved occurs in the music as well as in the design of ritual. For example, the sequence of ritual events may aim to progressively increase  psychological tension, while the spatial design is symbolic of the states of consciousness. These rituals divide their processes into two rooms, a secular (earthly) and sacred (supernatural) space, that serves to distinguish the levels of consciousness and provide a symbol for transcendence.

The psychology of the individual is affected by symbols in various sensory modes, which serve the cultural narrative and enhance ritual objectives. For example, the integration of an ancestral spirit into the human being would not be possible without the symbols that represent the god and its manifestation into the earthy plane and human mind. Symbols are made real by affecting the senses: the aural mode uses sound to create tension and emotional intensity; the kinaesthetic mode provides a representation of the gods in bodily form; the conceptual mode presents mythologies of past iterations of the god and its manifestation in modern times; the olfactory mode provides the consecration of  sacredness, purity, and mystery, and symbolises spirit in air. While the visual mode designates the levels of consciousness and provides material for contemplation into deep subjective experience of altered states. All of these elements serve the psychological, which is the activation and transformation of mind. Through their symbolic qualities,  a ritual is transformed from a series of mundane events to sacred and powerful performances that create lasting change in the participants. A ritual that is culturally meaningful, psychologically active, and potent imbues the community with meaning, aiding transformations of identity, and provides the social glue to create strong communities.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to read previous articles then head to https://www.vincentsebastian.com/blog  . Don’t forget to join the newsletter for upcoming thought-provoking articles about music practice and psychology, culture, spirituality, and creativity . You can check out my original ​music​ here. 

References

Blacking, J., (1971), Deep and surface structures in Venda music. Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, 3, pp.91-108. Groove. Music Analysis, 36: p.138-160.

Large, E. (2005), Nonlinear resonance: a musical universal?, in Clayton, M, Sager, R. and Will, U., In time with the music : the concept of entrainment and its significance for ethnomusicology, European meetings in ethnomusicology., 11 (ESEM Counterpoint 1) . pp. 1-82.

Levitin, D. (2024), Music as Medicine. Cornerstone Press, Random House UK.

Martin, D.C., (2013), Is This the Dance Floor or a Revival Meeting? Theological Questions and Challenges from the Underground House Music Movement. In Ed. Coleman, M., Ain’t I a Womanist too: Third Wave Womanist Religious Thought, 1517 Media, Fortress Press.

St John, G. (2006). Electronic Dance Music Culture and Religion: An Overview1 . Culture and Religion, 7(1), 1–25.

Vallejo, P., (2007). ‘Logic and music in black Africa (II): social function and musical technique in the gogo heritage, Tanzania’ Transcultural Music Review, (11), p.1, Spain

Winkelman, M., (2011). ‘A paradigm for understanding altered consciousness: The integrative mode of consciousness’. Altering Consciousness: Multidisciplinary perspectives, 1, pp.23-44.

Witek, M.A.G. (2017), Filling In: Syncopation, Pleasure and Distributed Embodiment in