Or listening to a piece of music can be a spiritual experience without being a religious moment.
I think somebody who enjoys sitting on a mountain top and watching a sunset might be having a spiritual moment that has nothing to do with religion. In other words, I think religion is one manifestation of the human spirit or spirituality, but there are lots of other manifestations of a spirituality. But I think, actually, the truth is that spirituality is the main heading and religion might be scooped up under it. Iris Yob: I think we’ve tended, in the Western world at least, to scoop up the idea of spirituality and put it under the heading of religion. I know you write they both share mystical and ritual elements, but that religion is yoked with an institution whereas spirituality is not, but maybe you can elaborate on that. I think it’s important to establish what it is we mean when we talk about spirituality and how it departs from religion. For years, she’s been trying to answer this very question of why and how music provides direction and purpose. (These interviews have been edited for brevity and clarity.)Ĭhloé Lula: Iris Yob is a Professor Emerita at Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who specializes in music and spirituality studies. What happens when we have a spiritual experience listening to music? What is it about the tenor of the last year that has prompted so many people to turn to ambient and New Age? What exactly are we missing in the ecstatic communion of raves? What is it about music that allows us to tap into a higher plane of consciousness? It’s been difficult for me to articulate or even understand the connection between art and the metaphysical, so I interviewed artists, DJs and musicologists to try to unravel the intractable relationship between music and spirituality, and how sound can facilitate personal and collective healing amid turmoil and uncertainty. In the music media, there’s been a collective outpouring of affection for ambient music as an emollient as well as a yearning for dance music and the community and emotional deliverance it can provide. During the first lockdown, there were a couple of times when I took a walk in total desperation just to listen to something that transmuted that feeling into something more profound, a sensation of deep insight into the world beyond my body or even our composite lived experiences. For me, it’s helped sublimate feelings of distress and transform moments of sadness or extreme anxiety or boredom into sometimes transcendent ones of calm and groundedness and release. I want to explore the role music has played in soundtracking the last year.