Special Broadcasts: October 2009

The Nerve: Music and Human Experience

Friday, October 30, 2009 at 8:03 AM

In Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and every minor religion around the world, music has been used as a tool to elevate the spirit or unite the faithful. On this episode of The Nerve, host Jowi Taylor looked at how music has come to be so closely associated with the sacred, and how chanting, singing and drumming in unison produce tangible physical effects, evoking altered states from trance to exaltation. Many cultures consider music to be a gift from the gods. But apart from the claim that it is a gift from God, what is it exactly about music that makes it have such power over our spirits?  The Nerve congregated a variety of opinions from multiple faiths to address why music so enchants and entrances us.