judith becker

University of Michigan, Musicology, Emerita

Followers

Following

Public Views

Tristan Carter

McMaster University

Ruben López-Cano

Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya

Marta Diaz-Guardamino

Durham University

Joel Krueger

University of Exeter

Stefano R L Campana

University of Siena / Università di Siena

Adam M Croom

Case Western Reserve University

Katharina Rebay-Salisbury

University of Vienna

Timothy D Taylor

University of California, Los Angeles

Michael Kirchhoff

University of Wollongong

Leonardo García Sanjuán

Universidad de Sevilla

Interests

Uploads

Papers by judith becker

Review: Music in Bali by Colin McPhee

Journal of the American Musicological Society, 1968

Download

Karawitan: Source Readings in Javanese Gamelan and Vocal Music, Vol. 1

Asian Music, 1985

Cross-cultural perspectives on music and musicality

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Jan 19, 2015

Musical behaviours are universal across human populations and, at the same time, highly diverse i... more Musical behaviours are universal across human populations and, at the same time, highly diverse in their structures, roles and cultural interpretations. Although laboratory studies of isolated listeners and music-makers have yielded important insights into sensorimotor and cognitive skills and their neural underpinnings, they have revealed little about the broader significance of music for individuals, peer groups and communities. This review presents a sampling of musical forms and coordinated musical activity across cultures, with the aim of highlighting key similarities and differences. The focus is on scholarly and everyday ideas about music--what it is and where it originates--as well the antiquity of music and the contribution of musical behaviour to ritual activity, social organization, caregiving and group cohesion. Synchronous arousal, action synchrony and imitative behaviours are among the means by which music facilitates social bonding. The commonalities and differences i...

Download

Émotion Musicale, Mouvement Musical et Neurones Miroirs

Download

Voices in Bali

Burmese Spirit Worship

The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, Volume 1, 2019

An exposition of the Burmese Nat Pwe spirit possession ceremony provides the vehicle for Judith B... more An exposition of the Burmese Nat Pwe spirit possession ceremony provides the vehicle for Judith Becker to explore the uses of music for imaginative transformations of the autobiographical self. In these rituals, the spirits of historical personages, nats, bestow their powers on the androgynous, transgendered person of the medium, whose autobiographical self is transposed to that of the nat, who is then able to bestow favors on supplicants. Becker makes the case that it is the power of the rituals’ musical accompaniment that provides the means through sensory overload and high emotion to actualize the imaginative realm of the nats.

Music, Trancing, and the Absence of Pain

Pain and Its Transformations, 2008

Crossing Boundaries: An Introductory Essay

Empirical Musicology Review, 2009

Download

Religious Ecstatics, "Deep Listeners," and Musical Emotion

Empirical Musicology Review, 2009

The aim of this study is to begin to provide an explanation for the worldwide linkage of music an... more The aim of this study is to begin to provide an explanation for the worldwide linkage of music and ecstatic religious ceremonies. The basic hypothesis is that the physiological ability to respond to musical stimuli with strong emotional responses is one of the preconditions for the propulsion into ecstasy. A second hypothesis is that a subset of the music-loving community, the "deep listeners" who are profoundly moved (chills, tears) by musical listening will have emotional reactions similar to those of religious ecstatics. 60 participants, divided into five groups, were tested using galvanic skin response and heart rate measurements. The results seem to support the hypotheses by demonstrating 1) a correlation between being a religious ecstatic and having a strong GSR while listening to favorite music, in comparison with control groups, and 2) a correlation between being a secular "deep listener" and having a similarly strong GSR listening to favorite music, in comparison with control groups.

Download

L’action-dans-le-monde. Émotion musicale, mouvement musical et neurones miroirs

Cahiers D Ethnomusicologie Anciennement Cahiers De Musiques Traditionnelles, Dec 31, 2010

Download

Listening selves and spirit possession

The World of Music, 2000

The A. explores the idea that certain senses of personhood or styles of subjectivity preclude the... more The A. explores the idea that certain senses of personhood or styles of subjectivity preclude the experience of spirit possession, while certain others may encourage it. Notably, the Cartesian self, the rational, self-controlled, disengaged self tends to hold in contempt those who practice spirit possession, with its surrender of control and lack of ironic distance. Conversely, those who tend to have strong emotional reactions to musical stimuli and those who do not maintain aesthetic distance or an ironic stance toward experience are more likely to be involved in spirit possession. The listening subject in a spirit possession ceremony is ever alert to musical signals that indicate the presence of divine beings and the possibility of personal transformation. Drawing upon materials from evangelicals in colonial Virginia and contemporary U.S. Pentecostals, the A. contrasts the non-ironic, engaged selves who may be involved with experiences of transcendent unity with holy beings and the Cartesian selves whose sense of an appropriate style of selfhood centers more on self-control and rationality. These two American styles of self are then compared with trancers and those who do not trance among the Bugis peoples in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The A. concludes that more than one style of selfhood may be available even within societies with a preferred, hegemonic style of self, and that only the listening self susceptible to the transport of musically-driven holy narratives will accept spirit possession

Call and Response—Revisited (Ethnomusicology and Empiricism)

Ethnomusicology, 2010

Ethnomusicology and Empiricism in the Twenty-First Century

... For some Deep Listeners, it may be difficult to find any music that they would not ... strong... more ... For some Deep Listeners, it may be difficult to find any music that they would not ... strongest single response that same individual exhibited while listening to their favorite music in the ... of musical listening cannot be ignored within empirical studies of musical emotions (see Figure 7 ...

The Migration of the Arched Harp from India to Burma

The Galpin Society Journal, 1967

... Sur-vey S. India: The Buddist Stupas of Amaravati etc., PI. ... 5) and the harp disappeared i... more

Is Western Art Music Superior?

The Musical Quarterly, 1986

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

Download

Music and Trance

Leonardo Music Journal, 1994

Fourteen years ago, Rouget wrote Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations Between Music and Po... more

The Rags of North Indian Music. By N. A. Jairazbhoy. Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1971. 222 pp. Appendices, Bibliography, Index. $22.50

The Journal of Asian Studies, 1973

Percussive Patterns in the Music of Mainland Southeast Asia

Ethnomusicology, 1968

... Are we to assume a sharp break in the musical traditions of Indonesia and mainland Southeast ... more

Traditional Music in Modern Java: Gamelan in a Changing Society

Ethnomusicology, 1983

... Traditional music in modern Java: Gamelan in a changing society. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS... more