{"id":80,"date":"2016-05-05T02:43:02","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T02:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/?p=80"},"modified":"2016-05-05T04:01:55","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T04:01:55","slug":"sacred-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/2016\/05\/05\/sacred-sound\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacred Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

Week 3: God’s Word as Sacred Sound<\/p>\n

This\u00a0was my favorite piece to create.\u00a0 I’ll\u00a0start by explaining the different audio tracks, and then\u00a0explain\u00a0what ties them all together.\u00a0 I pulled from many audio sources, all of which I can provide as needed.<\/p>\n

The track consists of\u00a0sounds from nature, ambient urban traffic sounds, a few musical selections,\u00a0some voiceover audio, and concludes with a prayer in English.\u00a0\u00a0As the different selections become audible, the emerge and die off into Qur’annic recitation that\u00a0plays throughout (with some variety of verse and reciter), if quietly at times.\u00a0 The big idea is that\u00a0sacred sound in Islam is the word of God as expressed in the recitation of the\u00a0Qur’an, but it is also found\u00a0in nature because evidence of God is omnipresent.\u00a0 The track begins and ends\u00a0with sounds of nature from which the recitation is born and to which it returns.\u00a0 This serves to emphasize\u00a0recitation as a core practice of Islam.<\/p>\n

Nelson’s selection from this week’s reading concludes with discussion of the ubiquitous, diverse,\u00a0and quotidian nature of Qur’annic recitation in many Muslim communities. I tried to incorporate the atmosphere of ambient noise in different settings into the piece.\u00a0 I like to think of this work as a meditation on the idea of having “as an integral part of your day, a sound with all the implications and power and beauty and prestige of the recited Qur’an.”<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Jaggi Vasudev, or Sadhguru, speaks about the re-emergence of Rumi’s\u00a0popularity today.\u00a0 He also discusses passion and extremism in expressing love.\u00a0 This touches not only on the role of poetry as “divine sound,” but also represents a more mystic interpretation of Islam outside of the Qur’an.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Rappers AZ and Nas perform a selection from “Essence” in which they praise Allah, representing a western, current-day manifestation of a different kind of “divine sound.” They continue against a background of traffic noises and (almost inaudible) recitation, which highlights the underlying influence of God in the creation of both art (rap) and the mundane (traffic, e.g.).<\/li>\n
  3. Grace Nono performs an indigenous Phillippine vocal piece.\u00a0 This audio seems to compete with the recitation, the volume of both tracks waning in and out.\u00a0 The idea is a revival of the notion that religious practices and spiritual expression may sometimes\u00a0be in conflict, but\u00a0everything comes from the same ultimate source – they are both expressions of God’s creation. Grace closes with a prayer of peace and of unity, calling upon the creator to bind together\u00a0old and young, male and female, animals, plants,\u00a0and nature.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The unifying theme throughout is the irrelevance of time in expression of sacred sound – the merging of old and new as sourced from nature, the ultimate evidence of Allah.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Week 3: God’s Word as Sacred Sound This\u00a0was my favorite piece to create.\u00a0 I’ll\u00a0start by explaining the different audio tracks, and then\u00a0explain\u00a0what ties them all together.\u00a0 I pulled from many audio sources, all of which I can provide as needed. The track consists of\u00a0sounds from nature, ambient urban traffic sounds, a few musical selections,\u00a0some voiceover […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8005,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8005"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/wwnjameson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}