The Sema Ceremony is worshipped by Mevlevi, which places “a strong emphasis on music, which sends the practitioner’s physical body into a slow dance of graceful and ecstatic turning” connecting their soul with God. The effect that music has on the audience is bonding the people together. The performance is usually performed in Turkey, first starting with meditation, and then transitioning into dancing. The performers usually follow a recommended fast for several hours and then begin to rotate into short twists, dancing in a pattern they were taught. The instrument that is typically used in this performance is at least one singer, a flute player using neyzen, a kettledrummer, and a cymbal player. 

In relation to this, Gospel music, such as the Amazing Grace, has some similarities to the Sema ceremony. One similarity is that both are in relation to God. A difference between the two would be that Gospel music such as Amazing Grace requires vocals while in the Sema Ceremony, there are no voices in it. Another difference would be how known each music is, where Gospel music may be more well known than the Sema Ceremony. A similarity between Amazing Grace and in the Sema Ceremony, is that they are both at a slower tempo and rhythm but Amazing Grace is acapella.

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