Music and Religion: Trends in Recent English-Language Literature (2015–2021)

This article reviews recent (2015–2021) English-language publications that focus on music in/as/about religion (broadly defined)—including world, folk, and indigenous religious traditions. While research related to Euro–American-based Christian music accounts for more publications than any other single tradition examined, this review intentionally foregrounds religions that are not as well represented in this literature, such as Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, and folk and animistic traditions from around the world. Recurring trends within this literature elucidate important themes therein, four of which are examined in detail: (1) race and ethnicity, (2) gender and sexuality, (3) music therapy (and medical ethnomusicology), and (4) indigenous music. Broadly speaking, recent (2015–2021) publications related to religion, music, and sound reflect growing societal and political interests in diversity and inclusion, yet there remain perspectives, ideas, and ontologies not yet accounted for. The list of references cited at the end of this article represents only those publications cited in the review and a more comprehensive bibliography is available via an open-sourced Zotero group.

Bali Healing Ritual in Sri Lanka from a Medical Ethnomusicology Perspective

Medical ethnomusicology, a new growing sub-field of ethnomusicology takes into consideration on an equal basis music, medicine/healing and culture. This article focuses on a complex of cultural beliefs intertwined with the arts and crafts, in a multileyered bali healing ritual, which aims to restore wellbeing of individuals and communities in the South Asian country Sri Lanka.

Constructing a Two-Way Street: An Argument for Interdisciplinary Collaboration through an Ethnomusicological Examination of Music Therapy, Medical Ethnomusicology, and Williams Syndrome

In this article, I investigate the ways in which methodological exchange between the fields of medical ethnomusicology and music therapy (MT) creates an interdisciplinary two-way street which, on the one hand enhances therapeutic practice by adopting an ethnographic and cultural understanding of disability, and on the other enriches ethnomusicological studies by ethnographically utilizing music therapy techniques. In support of this viewpoint, I offer ethnographic accounts of my time conducting research on music and Williams Syndrome and working alongside music therapists at the Whispering Trails summer camp for children with Williams Syndrome (WS) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ultimately, I argue that synergistic collaboration between the fields of medical ethnomusicology and music therapy will not only augment scholarship in these areas, but will also allow ethnomusicologists and music therapists to address issues of social justice and to promote accommodation and acceptance for disability within society.

Muti Music - In search of suspicion

Our playful title, "Muti Music", emblematises our stance of deliberate and cultivated suspicion towards medical ethnomusicology, for this special issue. Positioned within and between music therapy, medical anthropology and ethnomusicology, this paper considers how these disciplinary discourses and practices might engage with Medical Ethnomusicology, and what that prism might offer music therapy in particular. Muti Music proposes messy hybridity, which we suggest reflects the social-cultural and cosmological fusions necessary for contemporary practices whether in, or of, the South, East, North or West. Straddling the South and the Global North, we propose that Western (and at times bio-medically informed) healing and health practices might well consider reclaiming and re-sourcing their own, and other, traditional and indigenous healing cosmologies, whatever their respective and situated ideologies and ontologies. Despite apparent (and possibly intellectual and ideological) segmentations and separations of disciplines by Western scholarship and economics, we propose that "the ancestors" and "the aspirin" need to embrace rather than view one another with suspicion. Just possibly, each might become enriched (and discomforted) by the silenced coincidences of one another’s desires to know and experience our common humanity through music.

Medical Ethnomusicology: Wherein Lies Its Potential?

The connection between music and healing has been both present and perceived for centuries, as evidenced in such famous comments as Congreve’s remark that “Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak” (The Healing Music Organization 2011). While music therapy, medicine, and medical anthropology all examine the interplay of music and healing, medical ethnomusicology, an academic field that studies this symbiotic relationship from a cultural standpoint, has only recently been developed. Further, while music’s power to heal plays an increasing role in Western medicine/biomedicine, the term medical ethnomusicology seems to mostly be reserved for non-Western studies, with Michael Bakan’s (2009) work on autism being the most notable exception. In this paper, medical ethnomusicology’s relevance within the greater field of ethnomusicology is considered. Methodological approaches of the fields in question will be addressed, with the intent of showing how medical ethnomusicology can and should be applied to Western concepts and practices of music and healing.

Music Therapy and Medical Ethnomusicology: Distinctive and Connected

A music therapist and an ethnomusicologist who is also qualified as a music therapist explore some of the ways in which music therapy and medical ethnomusicology might engage a dialogue that is helpful to expanding thinking and practice in both fields. We begin by describing music therapy and outlining some core concepts of therapeutic work. We then discuss ethnomusicology and reflect on the ways in which music therapy and ethnomusicology may complement one another in the field of medical ethnomusicology. We consider how an exploration of concepts informing cultural safety might be enacted in healthcare through the use of music and whether this might serve as a useful joint future enterprise between music therapists and medical ethnomusicologists. Finally we explain why we encourage medical ethnomusicologists to cease attempts to become applied therapeutic practitioners without further therapy skills training.

Balance Between the Worlds: A Conversation with Dr. Richard Vedan

In this article, Dr. Richard Vedan, a Secwepmec, lodge keeper, and medical social worker converses with Dr. Carolyn Kenny about critical elements of medical ethnomusicology as seen and experienced through an Indigenous context. Dilemmas of individualism versus collectivism and isolation versus connectivity underlie the entire conversation. Relevant themes in the traditional use of music in Indigenous healing are discussed.