The Bible and Music

Yesterday in class we talked about chanting. What is chanting? Does all chanting count as music? In class, we defined chanting as repetitive sounds or words with rhythm. We looked at a contemporary example of chanting. We looked at a cheer at the Butler Basketball game. From that we moved on to psalms which are more musical chants. We read Psalm 8 out loud. First very monotone which made it sound very boring, then we sang/talked it. When we did that, it made the psalm much more engaging. I found it very interesting how changing the rhythm, tone, and pitch can make speaking/chanting more engaging for the audience. I enjoyed learning about the drawings of different hand gestures which told people how to sing the songs. I also thought it was very interesting at the end of class when we talked about how all music influences each other. For example the piece at the end of class was Hebrew but sounded like Islamic prayers. This was because it used a scale from the Middle East. I would like to learn more about music influenced by other regions.