Introduction to Music

Education
Week 1
09 January, 2021
Shehzad Amin and Nasirud’din Zahir
OBJECTIVES: Week 1

By the end of this session you will have:

• Understood the importance of music in your life
• Understood the intense relationship between music and the brain
• Understood why music is an integral part of our mental wellbeing
• Understood how you can make interventions in your life using music
to correct sudden, negative changes in your mood
• Understood what Sahib DF says about Music in ‘Psalms of Lovers’
Human Brain
INTRODUCTION
• In the modern world, it’s common for all individuals to have at least
these two sides to their personality:
• Side A: Influenced by one’s own instinctive characteristics
• Side B: Influenced by the society one lives in
• As an individual grows in this world, they often experience conflicts
between what they want for themselves, and what society expects of
them
• While an individual navigates through life doing what they want for
themselves at times, but conforming to the expectations of their
society at others, they feel the emotions of happiness and pain
• This constant fluctuation can become overwhelming at times,
especially because the conflict between self interest and societal
expectations last a lifetime for some
Happy Hormones in our brain.
• Also known as the “feel-good” hormone, dopamine is a
hormone and neurotransmitter that’s an important part of
your brain’s reward system. Dopamine is associated with pleasurable
sensations, along with learning, memory, motor system function, and
more.
This hormone (and neurotransmitter) helps regulate your mood
as well as your sleep, appetite, digestion, learning ability, and
memory.
•
Often called the “love hormone,” oxytocin is essential
for childbirth, breastfeeding, and strong parent-child
bonding. This hormone can also help promote trust, empathy, and
bonding in relationships, and oxytocin levels generally increase with
physical affection like kissing, cuddling, and pleasure.
• Endorphins. Endorphins are your body’s natural pain reliever, which
your body produces in response to stress or discomfort.
Endorphin levels also tend to increase when you engage in reward-
producing activities, such as eating, working out, or having pleasure.
When one is passionate about a particular pursuit in life, the pains of that
pursuit also eventually become pleasurable - for example working hard
for an exam, then achieving a top grade

THINK!
• How has music helped you to adjust yourself into normal life?
• Perhaps your parents played calming music for you to help you sleep
as a child
• Perhaps music was used in your early years of schooling to introduce
you to new concepts, e.g the alphabet, which is commonly taught
through a catchy song
• As you grew up, did you begin to use music to motivate yourselves to
do certain tasks? Or did you begin to use it as a form of relaxation?
• We often cannot choose the society we grow up living in
• We also cannot often choose who we go to school or work with
• Essentially, we cannot control all the things we dislike about our life,
so we have to find a way to live with them
• One solution is to use music in our lives to stimulate our ‘happy’
hormones when we find ourselves upset
• Listening to your favourite song can also help you during everyday
tasks, and in fact make them enjoyable - e.g using a long journey as
an opportunity to listen to lots of good music!
Music and The Brain: A Powerful Connection
• Music activates all parts of the brain, including the ‘calla sum’, which
connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain
• Listening to homophonic and polyphonic music actually exercises our
brain
• Our brains respond differently to happy and sad music.
• Learning music, or even listening to it regularly, can significantly
improve our motor and reasoning skills
Singing, Listening and Movement
• Singing along to our favourite songs is, for many, an important part of
daily life
• A song is a complete piece of music that includes all musical
elements, i.e melody, lyrics, timbre, tempo, harmony, and dynamics
• Singing whilst simultaneously listening to the music in the
background makes use of both sides of the brain
• Making music has numerous neurological benefits, including
strengthening our sensory abilities
• Moving to music activates the motor system, and engages different
parts of the brain at the same time
A Monophonic texture occurs when a piece of music
features a single melody
A Monophonic texture of music involves one melodic line only. Multiple
instruments/voices can be playing, but all must be playing the same, one
melody. Different instruments/voices can play the same melody in different
octave ranges.
Our daily tasbih/ginan khwani with Rubab and Daf is an example of
monophonic music - all voices and instruments usually sing and play the same
melodic line. Other examples include the Gujrati Ginan traditions, Qur’an
recitations, etc.
A Homophonic texture involves a melodic line accompanied by
a harmony
Examples include Ginan recitations with keyboards that play automated
accompaniments featuring other melodic/rhythmic lines (like Khalifa Barkat Ali used
to recite with his keyboard on auto-accompaniment), as well as western classical
music which often involves a solo string instrument accompanied by a pianist playing
chords and a line of harmony
Polyphonic music involves two or more distinct melodic
lines
Counterpoint refers to the compositional technique used to
handle multiple distinct melodic lines in the same
composition
Hadith to show music should not be
opposed:
Narrated from ‘Ā’ishāh: “The Holy Prophet entered my house while there
were two girls with me singing the song of Bu’as. He lay on his side on the
bed and turned his face and Abu Bakr entered and chiding me said: ‘The
pipe of Satan in the presence of the Prophet!’. The Holy Prophet turned to
him and said “Let them continue…. And this was on the day of Eid”
Quoted in ‘Allāmah Naṣīr al-Dīn Naṣīr Hunza’i (Sitārah-yi Imtiyāz)’s
‘Psalms of Lovers’, Faquir, Rashida Hunzai tr., pp. 9, 10.
Primary sources: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 907, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 892
Many Muslims think music is a weapon Satan uses to turn people away
from the remembrance of Allah, and that is what Abu Bakr was implying.
However, the Prophet’s response, namely to ignore and thus imply the
falsehood of Abu Bakr’s comment, clearly shows that this view is
completely false. Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, one of the most prominent Sunni
scholars to have lived, has himself used this particular Hadith to justify why
music is not unlawful. In his ‘Iḥyā’ Ulūm al-Dīn’, he says the following:
• “All of these traditions are reported in the two authentic books, Al-Bukhari
and Muslim, and they demonstrate that singing and playing is not unlawful.
From them we may deduce the following lessons.... Fourth, the Prophet
prevented Abu Bakr and Umar from interrupting and scolding the players
and singers, and he told Abu Bakr that this festival was a joyous occasion
and that singing was a means of enjoyment... Seventh, singing and playing
with the drum is permissible.”

• Al-Ghazali’s seventh deduction, namely “singing and playing with the drum
is permissible”, is a direct reference to the Prophet’s arrival in Madinah,
where He was welcomed by women playing the daf and singing.
Cure of Diseases by Music:

On page 17 of ‘Psalms of Lovers’, Saheb quotes Muhammad Kurd ‘Ali who, on

page 213 of his book ‘al-Qadīm wa’l-Ḥadīs’, says the following:

“Melodies purify souls and produce vitality in them. Thus it is because of them
that the coward becomes bold in the battlefield, the stingy becomes
generous, the coarse becomes delicate, the callous becomes tender, the
unjust becomes just and the vile becomes sympathetic.”
• On pages 20-21 of his ‘Psalms of Lovers’, Saheb writes:
“The method of cure through music is not new, but is very old, because
giryah-u zārī and munājāt began with Ḥaz̤rat Adam and this has remained
the sunnat, the habit, of all the Prophets (19:58). By the command of God,
Ḥaz̤rat Dā’ūd added music to this Prophetic ‘ibādat which is in the light of
love and ma’rifat, and the way this has been enhanced in the heavenly
book of Psalms is exalted. Now, I should say without any hesitation that if
you experience a miraculous ecstacy through the music of the daf and
rubāb and the melodious recitation of ma’rifat-filled poetry, then you are
blessed with the grace of Ḥaz̤rat Isrāfīl. And this is the spiritual cure of all
kinds of disease and also their prevention.”
• On page 22, Saheb goes on to write:
“It is my absolute conviction and practical experience that in the music which is
heard with poems based on love for Allāh, the Prophet and the Imām of the time,
there is a cure for many diseases.
• Such music and such love is a Divine prescription for all kinds of disease, but
particularly psychological, ethical and spiritual diseases. Because we are not
discussing music alone here, nor should someone think that the voice of the Ṣūr
or Nāqūr is only music, they should realize that in it there is every kind of
remembrance and ‘ibādat of the world of particles and the Beautiful Names
recite themselves automatically. Similarly, with the rubāb are also recited the
Beautiful Names. The Beautiful Names of God are the Holy Prophet and the pure
Imāms and God accepts prayer through them. Thus the miracle of cure through
sacred music is in reality due to the blessing of the Supreme Name, the Imām of
the time, because in the Imām-i mubīn are included all the great names.”
• Here, Saheb alludes to the power of reciting the Names of God with the rubāb.
On page 23, Saheb goes on to establish the importance of performing such
recitation in congregation:

• “Among the azkār (pl. of zikr) one old zikr is Shamsī, which is performed with
the daf and the rubāb in the da’wat-i baqā’. It is the open zikr (zikr-i jalī) and
collective zikr (zikr-i ijtimā’ī). The most powerful zikr of the da’wat-i baqā’ is
“bayt-i maydān”, in which the main purpose is giryah-u zārī, which all
participants perform by standing up. In accordance with the tradition of the
da’wat-i baqā’ there is also rūḥānī maḥfil, which with respect to expense and
time is easy and with respect to the group is special. Thus some of the lovers of
the Imām of the time get together and remember God.
• Saheb then offers some glad tidings of the potential forms of success in
these practices, writing:
“When during such a maḥfil munājāt is performed in modulation with the
rubāb, then sometimes by the mercy of God, a pleasant minor resurrection
takes place. That is, some members have giryah-u zārī, some experience
ecstacy, some experience shaking, some are intoxicated, some being out of
control speak unusually, some see light in the world of imagination and so
on. Under this amazing effect of the daf and the rubāb, can diseases be
cured or not?
• I think this is a great miracle of the light of the love of the heavenly
physician. If we do not cure our diseases by this means, it would be a grave
ingratitude on our part.”
Thank You