Religion: Hinduism 

How Is Music Used In Hinduism: Music in Hinduism has significant importance. Music offers Hindus a way to express their love for God, as well as offer prayers. It helps takes Hindus a step closer to finding their way back to God. Hindus sing songs to God while doing puja/hawan, when there is a religious festival, when the swami or pandit (priest), reads from the holy book(s), etc. 

Link: श्री हनुमान चालीसा Hanuman Chalisa I GULSHAN KUMAR I HARIHARAN, Full HD Video, Shree Hanuman Chalisa 

Song/Music: The musical piece that I chose is the Hanuman Chalisa. The Hanuman Chalisa is one of the most recited Bhajans (Religious song/prayer) in the Hindu Religion. 

Lord Hanuman is one of the most strong and most powerful Hindu Gods and is admired by Hindus across the world. Lord Hanuman was granted a boon of immortality, meaning Lord Hanuman is still amongst us today. Lord Hanuman also played a great role in the Ramayana (The Story of Lord Rama and his battle with Ravana, a demon). When Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya, Lord Rama asked Lord Hanuman to stay on Earth till the end and asked him to work for the welfare of the people. 

Therefore the Hanuman Chalisa is meant to benefit Hindu Devotees. By chanting the Hanuman Chalisa, Lord Hanuman himself will come to solve your problems. The Chalisa is meant to free us from our problems, fulfill our wishes, and keep/protect Hindus from evil forces. Lord Hanuman and the Hanuman Chalisa give Hindus the strength and courage to face challenges to their core. 

One musical element that I would like to focus on is the melody. For most Hindu Bhajans, the melody stays the same, except for when the singer is not singing, when there is a pause in singing the sacred text. The same thing happens here in the Hanuman Chalisa. Every time the singer takes a pause, there is a slight change to the melody when a stringed instrument, maybe a sitar, comes in. It adds substance to the Bhajan, and the melody only alters when the singer takes a pause, and this happens in most likely every Bhajan.

Recently, Steve Lacy did his “Give You the World” tour. Many people were excited but to their dismay, it went south very quickly. With the tickets being SUPER expensive as well as almost immediately being sold out within the first 30 minutes to one hour, fans thought they were going to get the performance of a lifetime. That couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

With every seat and floor being filled with people, there wasn’t much room for anybody to move. The crowd started to get very annoying and the focus towards the show quickly turned to talk amongst themselves. This irritated Lacy especially since this is his music that he wants his fans to appreciate. Not only that but it’s basically a waste of his time. Since I never went to a concert, I just expected it to be fans singing along with the artist and once they finish performing, they receive a round of applause and exit the stage. But, in one of the performances, the crowd was singing one of Lacy’s most popular choruses and only managed to sing that small section of the entire song. This further upset him because he was expecting to have an audience that completely knew the lyrics to his songs. But there was one more thing that Steve Lacy did that shocked me. While he was performing, fans kept tossing their phones on stage so Lacy could record on them. Already at his limit with his aggravating fans, he decided to take one of their phones and throw it as hard as he could on the stage, resulting in the phone splitting into multiple pieces. He then proceeded to walk off stage and end the show for the night.

This did NOT match my expectations whatsoever. Even if the performers didn’t talk to the audience, compared to the concerts that were reviewed in Unit 7, I was expecting to see a much calmer/happier environment especially since most concerts nowadays have the artist interacting with their listeners frequently. For example, in the “You Are Dead” concert, there wasn’t anyone talking to each other or people singing along with the stage. There were just the performers doing their job with an audience that came to appreciate and soak up the music they came for. Not phones being destroyed on stage with the performers leaving the stage and ending the entire show.  

The artist here is Doja cat who has had a pretty successful launch in her career because of the hot pink album. This song is from her recent album, planet her, where she performed the song “Women” from the ACL music festival. According to Wikipedia the song is a “fusion of pop, R&B, and reggae.” I haven’t personally been to this concert but from the video, the performer had a lot on stage with her such as dancers, musicians, set designs and a few other things. The audience is having a good time, where they are singing along loudly, recording the song, standing and/ or are getting carried to view the concert. Due to the genre of this, I’m not surprised of how either performer or audience are acting as to them it may be typical to act like this at these types of concerts. Compared to the concerts we viewed in unit 7, the opera ones were not as loud, had a different timbre and tone to the music. The instruments being used in them were also different as the opera ones had more classical and/ or traditional instruments. While this used more modern sounding instruments. The music also felt like it had more emotions which is potentially due to the heartbreak most of them go through. 

Jacques Bermon Webster ll, also known as Travis Scott is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He holds concerts in outdoor fields. I decided to watch this concert because I heard it all over social media when it happened. He held this concert November 5th, 2021, it resulted in the death of 19 people who attended. This specific concert was held outside. He was dressed casually and created a very loud and aggressive setting with his special effects, flamethrowers being one of them. This tragedy of a concert was way too overcrowded at the time and the crowd “began to compress toward the front of the stage.” The crowding began with people being unaware of the push and when they finally realized they all collectively attempted to run to safety. By the time Travis realized it was too late and many people were already injured/dead. The concert ended up ending earlier than planned, obviously for public safety reasons. I’d like to compare this concert to Beethoven’s. Both concerts were not very appealing for the audience, Travis’s a lot more than Beethoven. Both were because the performer itself was unaware of the setting that they were putting their audience in.

A live music performance that I attended recently was from an artist called Glaive. I went with a friend and we were both fans of Glaive as well as other artists who were going to perform that night. Glaive is an artist mostly known for being in the Hyperpop genre of music. To explain what Hyperpop is, I’d say it’s similar to pop music but more fast paced and with different sounding electric sounds as beats. The concert took place in Webster Hall which is located near Washington Square Park in Manhattan. It was a pretty small venue but I recall it being filled with people. A couple days later I looked up how many people attended the concert and found out that more than 1,000 attended. This took me by surprise as I didn’t think that many people could fit in that concert hall. Everyone in the crowd was standing and the stage was really close to the audience. We could hear the music very loud and it sounded amazing.

Hearing Glaive perform live was very memorable for me. He was my favorite artist at the time and I had been listening to his music for a while. As soon as I saw that he had a show in New York, I told my friend about it and we bought the tickets as soon as we could. His performance did not disappoint. He hyped everyone in the crowd and gave us a really good show. All the people there were shouting the lyrics to his songs and jumping to the music. This reminded me of the Coachella performance by Khalid. The fans were singing the lyrics to his songs and he interacted with the crowd as well. I think in order for an artist to have a successful concert, they need to include the audience with their performance.

Amar Toor believes that the “Rite of Spring” performance was the cause of the riot. From a confused point of view, he tries to break the situation down to see if it was a publicity stunt, a mistake, or an honest attempt to please the viewers with something completely different. As well as being described as “mayhem and chaos,” a fight broke out between two audience factions which eventually turned into vegetables being thrown on the stage. Though it was already confusing determining what exactly was going on in this performance, one thing for sure is that it was NOT a success.  

According to Gleason, the Riot of the “Rite of Spring” never happened. It was actually a myth that was just exaggerated to its fullest potential. The performance was still “shocking to the audience” with its excessively loud music and unpremeditated acoustics where the balcony was, but there wasn’t anybody throwing anything on stage, let alone a fight breaking out. People might’ve felt upset or uneasy but it never got to the point where people were being “physically violent.”  One reason to prove that it never happened was that at the end of the performance, the dancers took five curtain calls and then in the evening there was another ballet. The next performance wouldn’t have been possible if there was a brawl between the factions. 

With all being said, the first time that I listened to it I honestly didn’t mind it. Did I enjoy it? I don’t know. Did I hate it? No. I was captivated by it because of its abnormality especially since it was the polar opposite of what was expected. I am used to these performances being easy going and maybe a little bit of loud every once in a while, but the performance was almost deafening (with respect to it being viewed by a laptop as well.) It was new though and at least was an attempt at something beyond the ordinary which was very much appreciable. If I was a person in the audience that night, I probably would’ve left because I wouldn’t be able to lower the music manually like how I am able to now. But, if the music was lower just a tad bit, I would consider staying.