Faith-Based Music as a Communication Phenomenon: A Study of the Liturgical, Worship and Religious Music of Three Religious Denominations in the Philippines

Abstract

This dissertation is a baseline study of the communication phenomenon of faith-based music among three religious’ denominations in the Philippines. Using grounded theory as the substantive qualitative approach and research paradigm, the study sought to answer the question: How does the communication phenomenon of faith-based music work in liturgical, worship and religious music among three religious’ denominations in the Philippines? To address this question, the researchers designed a Communicative Music Model in a honeycomb metaphor of seven communication building blocks consisting of (1) meaning-making and symbolic interaction; (2) thematic recurrence in symbols and signification (3) sense-making; (4) music as a mode of transmission through worship; (5) music as a mode of preservation and institutionalization through ritual; (6) relational process and praxis involved among the agents of music, the hierarchy of the church and the listeners and the (7) phenomenology of music in faith environments. The communicative Music Model was used as a scaffold to analyze and make sense of the narratives on which a middle-range theory called the Communicative Music Theory was generated.

The study found that the communication phenomenon of faith-based music operates in lifeworlds first before faith and music are simultaneously activated at the instance of communication. Among the liturgical, worship and religious music of religious denominations in the Philippines, the used of music to communicate faith is a relational event. In presenting the Communicative Music Theory, the following claims were made. One, the entry point of communicating faith-based music is the lifeworlds of the music agent and the user. Faith and music stay in lifeworlds and only get activated at the instance of the relational process of communication. Two, the production, interpretation and use of messages in faith-based music are in texts, tones and musical structures which form a faith-based language that go through intersubjective and interactive processes of praxis, meaning-making and sense-making made manifest in the musical product or performance. Three, musical products are incorporated in worship and ritual to embible an ethos and construct worldviews on faith and religion that become embedded in culture and lived experience.