ABSTRACT
Throughout the Indian subcontinent, music is used to accompany, punctuate, describe, announce, and give definition to rituals. This article discusses the music of calendrical rituals and rites of passage. Ritual music is almost always classified according to its context rather than its style; for this reason, there is a conspicuous focus here on the contexts and meanings of music, rather than on sound qualities. Still, it may be noted that musics of a particular ritual type (such as the wedding) in different regions of South Asia tend to share some sonic features. For example, joyful rites may occasion the performance of dancing and drumming—often at brisk tempos (figure 1). Occasions of sadness might inspire melodically stylized crying; the tempo of music at sad events is likely to be slow; dancing at such sad events (in the rare cases where it is sanctioned) will also probably be slow. Ceremonies relating to the vicissitudes of personal or communal fortune, such as healing rituals or rainmaking ceremonies, may make use of short repetitive pieces to induce spirit possession. These features of performance are not specific to South Asia and thus do not reveal significant information about the character of South Asian ritual musics. To move beyond these generalizations, we must examine individual ceremonial musics in each South Asian subculture.
