Music in Sema ceremonies plays a very important role. Participants in this ceremony believe that dancing this slow dance of graceful and ecstatic turning “experience direct spiritual union with God.”  The dance symbolizes the soul’s journey to God. Kyrie Eleison, a chant done in Christain masses. Most chants were done by clerics. According to them, plainchant was a “tool for connecting with the sacred.”  This chant is a symbolic representation of the holy trinity, therefore during mass setting this holy and heavy environment. These two traditions are similar as they both include music that is supposed to make them closer to God, however, the Music in Sema ceremonies is accompanied by dance, while the Christain chant is not. The chant is monophonic while Mevlevi has a drone and is more instrumental. 

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.