Shamanic music is ritualistic music used in religious and spiritual ceremonies associated with the practice of shamanism. Shamanic music makes use of various means of producing music, with an emphasis on voice and rhythm. It can vary based on cultural, geographic, and religious influences.
Recently in Siberia, music groups drawing on knowledge of shamanic culture have emerged. In the West, shamanism has served as an imagined background to music meant to alter a listener's state of mind. Korea and Tibet are two cultures where the music of shamanic rituals has interacted closely with other traditions.
In shamanism, the shaman has a more active musical role than the medium in spirit possession.
Shamanic and musical performance Since a Shamanic ritual includes a spiritual purpose and motive, it cannot be regarded as a musical performance, even though shamans use music (singing, drumming, and other instruments) in their rituals. Several things follow the ritual. First, a shamanic ritual performance is, above all, a series of actions and not a series of musical sounds.Mihály Hoppál, Tracing Shamanism in Tuva: A History of Studies, in Mongush Kenin Lopsan, Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tuva, Istor Budapest 1997 p 129 "...the struggle with the harmful spirits during which great drumbeats indicated that the shaman had driven a "steel arrow" for each beat into the spirits of sickness." Second, the shaman's attention is directed inwards towards her or his visualization of the spirit world and communication with the spirits, and not outwards to any listeners who might be present.Tim Hodgkinson, Musicians, Carvers, Shamans, Cambridge Anthropology vol 25, no 3, (2005/2006) p 9."Sergei Tumat (a Tuvan shaman who had previously studied music): "When I shamanize, I'm not here, not in the place where I'm playing the dungur drum, it's just my material body that's there: I'm away with the spirits, that's where my total attention is. If someone touches me, tries to get my attention there in the yurt, that's dangerous, it would be like falling a long way: so it's completely different from playing music to an audience, where you have to be there, to be attentive to what your material body is doing, to everything I learned in music school..."" Third, it is important for the success of the ritual that it be given its own clearly defined context that is quite different from any kind of entertainment. Fourth, any theatrical elements that are added to impress an audience are of a type to make the contact with the spirits seem more real and not to suggest the performer's musical virtuosity. From a musical perspective, shamanic ritual performances have the distinctive feature of . Breaks may happen because a spirit is proving difficult to communicate with, or the shaman needs to call a different spirit. Typically, phases of the performance are broken off abruptly, perhaps to be restarted after a gap, perhaps not.Carole Pegg, Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative, University of Washington Press, 2001, p135-6Ronald Hutton, The Shamans of Siberia, Isle of Avalon Press, 1993, p29 and p31Caroline Humphrey, Shamans and elders. Oxford, OUP1996, p 235-7 The rhythmic dimension of the music of shamans' rituals has been connected to the idea of both incorporating the rhythms of nature and magically re-articulating them.Carlo Serra, (in Italian)Ritmo e ciclità nella cultura sciamanica, in Antonello Colimberti (ed) Musiche e sciamani, Textus, Milan 2000, p67
Shamanism and possession It has been arguedGilbert Rouget, Music and Trance, University of Chicago Press 1985 p125 that shamanism and spirit possession involve contrasting kinds of special states of mind. The shaman actively enters the spirit world, negotiates with her or his helper spirit and then with other spirits as necessary, and moves between different territories of the spirit world. The possessed medium, on the other hand, is the passive recipient of a powerful spirit or god. This reflects the different uses of music involved. Possession musicFremont E.Besmer, Horses, Musicians and Gods: The Hausa Cult of Possession-Trance. Ahmadu Bello UP 1983 is typically longer in duration, mesmeric, loud, and intense, with climaxes of rhythmic intensity and volume to which the medium has learned to respond by entering a trance state: the music is not played by the medium but by one or more musicians. In shamanism, the music is played by the shaman, confirms the shaman's power (in the words of the shaman's song), and is used actively by the shaman to modulate movements and changes of state as part of an active journey within the spirit world. In both cases, the connection between music and an altered state of mind depends on both psychoacoustic and cultural factors, and the music cannot be said to 'cause' trance-states.Roberte Hamayon,(in French) Pour en finir avec la 'trance' et 'l'extase' dans l'étude du chamanisme, in Etudes mongoles et sibériennes 26: Variations Chamaniques 2, 1995, p155 seq.
Use of sounds
Sound is tactile; whereas visual information is experienced at the surface, auditory information seems to be both outside and inside the body.Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy: The technologizing of the word, Methuen, 1982 In oral cultures in which survival involves close contact with nature, sound often connects inner feelings to features of the natural environment. In many cases, this holds also for the music in shamanistic practice, including e.g. onomatopoeia, imitation of animal cries etc. The shaman's use of sound is to catalyze an imaginary inner environment which is experienced as a sacred space-time in which the shaman travels and encounters spirits. Sound, passing constantly between inner and outer, connects this imaginary space with the actual space of the ritual in which the shaman is moving and making ritual actions and gestures.
It has been suggested that the sound material used by the shaman constitutes a system of sounds.Massimo Ruggero, (in Italian) La musica sciamanica . – Xenia – 2004, p. 2 This idea of semiotics of the sound material would imply a symbolic language shared between the shaman and the surrounding community. However, the evidence suggests that any symbolic language elements are understood only by the shaman and perhaps by other shamans initiated by this shaman. In other words, the symbolic language, if there is one, is more likely to be shared with the spirits than with a human community.Michael Taussig, The Nervous System . – Routledge – 1992 p.177
A shaman may use different sounds for different ritual purposes: Setting up the sound-space of the ritual A very important element in Siberian shamanism is the use of hanging metallic objects – possibly including small bells – attached to the shaman's ritual cloak and to the inside of the drum and also sometimes to the beater. This sets up a continuously moving sound field, heard as a single complex sound.Andrew Stiller, Handbook of Instrumentation, University of California Press, 1985, p 121, A further element is the spatialization of sound brought about not only by the shaman's movement but also by techniques of singing into the drum to create the illusion of the voice coming from elsewhere. Different individual shamans and different local traditions may use different sounds. For example, in the south of Tuva and in Mongolia the khoums, or jaw harp is commonly used in shaman sing.Carole Pegg, Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative, University of Washington Press, 2001, p124 Preparation Particular sounds, like bells, may be used for purifying the place in which the ritual is to be performed.Marilyn Walker, Music as Knowledge in Shamanism and Other Healing Traditions of Siberia, in Arctic Anthropology.2003; 40(2): p45 This is because a ritual involving contact with the spirits is always potentially dangerous, and one of the dangers is that of pollution. Calling and sending back spirits A bell may also be used for calling or sending back spirits.Maria Kongin Seo, Hanyang Kut: Korean Shaman Ritual Music from Seoul, Routledge 2002 p14 Shamans will also imitate the sounds of birds and animals in order to call spirits.Theodore Levin, Where Rivers and Mountains Sing, (Indiana University Press 2006) Sami shamanic singing, called Joik, is also about summoning, for example, animal spirits, rather than singing about them or representing them: the spirit is experienced as being present.Tina Ramnarine, Acoustemology, Indigeneity & Joik, Ethnomusicology vol 53, no 2, spring/summer 2009, p. 191 Healing Within shamanic ritual, sound can also be used as a healing power, conceived as a way of directing spiritual energy from the shaman into an afflicted person.Marilyn Walker, 2003, p46 In Tuva sick persons are said to have been healed by the sound of a stringed instrument made from a tree struck by lightning.
Shaman's song The shaman's song – or largishMongush Kenin Lopsan, Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tuva Istor Budapest 1997 in Tuvan – is personal to the shamanMihály Hoppál, Studies on Eurasian Shamanism in Shamans and Cultures in Mihály Hoppál and Keith Howard eds pp258-288 Istor Budapest 1993 and tells of her or his birthplace, initiation, ancestral pedigree, special gifts, and special connections to particular spirits. The melody and words are composed by the shaman and generally remain the same throughout the shaman's professional life. The largish is often sung near the beginning of the ritual and accompanied by drumming on the danger drum. It serves to remind the shaman of their shamanic identity and power. It proclaims the shaman's abilities and announces the shaman to the spirits. In some traditions, the shaman's song may be broken up into short sections, varied, and recombined in different performances.Caroline Humphrey, Shamans and elders. Oxford, OUP1996, p 235
Korean shamanic music