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Blog 7, Lema

The music and dance of Mevlevi Sufi ,which is the sub-order of Sufi branch of Islam, plays an important role in its connection with god. For music the role it plays in the Sema ceremony is the “strong emphasis on music, which sends the practitioner’s physical body into a slow dance of graceful and ecstatic turning”(textbook). Since the Sema ceremony “symbolizes soul’s journey to God”, the different sections all have different music to symbolize the ones journey to god. The music supports the dances that take place in each section of the journey for example in the beginning of the dance arms crossed mean the “oneness with god” until the journey is complete.

For Buddhism, the musical practice that takes place for ceremonies involved mostly vocals. To be specific, they’d do chanting which is said Tom be the gateway for a spiritual experience. With the monk’s text with the chanting, each syllable has its own meaning and together represents a whole message. These traditions are similar to how in the Sema ceremony each dance step represents part of a journey similar to how in a monk’s text each syllable represents a meaning. The differences are in how these traditions are carried out one dance and the other by chanting.


1 Comment

  1. The two traditions here have a similar difference to Amazing Grace, as for Buddhism, they lack a dancing aspect of the tradition. This is the same for amazing grace, as it is only singing and music.

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