ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of music and musicians in the wedding processions (baraat) of northern India. I am concerned specifically with the contemporary dominant processional ensemble, the brass band, and with the ways the ensembles, musicians, and repertoire contribute to these processions. Muslim, Sikh, and Jain families often ‘take out’ baraats (as the process is described in Indian English); some of the fundamental ideologies and practices of baraats, however, have a fundamentally Hindu orientation, especially with regard to the use of sound and the production of auspiciousness. In the conclusion, I will suggest that changes in the meaning of processions are evidenced in contemporary processional performance practice.
