Muriithi Kigunda Livres

The book explores the intricate relationship between music and traditional healing practices in Kenya, challenging the notion that music therapy is solely tied to traditional rituals. It highlights how Western influences have also shaped healing practices, particularly within Catholic charismatic performances. Additionally, it examines the role of street musicians in the healing process, showing that music's therapeutic effects extend beyond religious contexts. This text is relevant for scholars across various disciplines interested in the intersection of music and healing in Africa.

The application of music in healing within Africa has been portrayed as nearly inevitably a subject about traditional rituals of possession adepts or shamans. It seems the absence of music therapy as a professional practice, and an interest in traditional cultures among anthropologists and ethnomusicologists, is responsible for that conjecture. Details in one of the chapters in this text leave no doubt that there is a strong relationship between music and traditional healing in Kenya. But comparable rituals are for Kenyans also Western imports, for healing procedures in performances of catholic charismatics clearly show that analogous trance behavior is manifest in healing functions in which music or sound is likewise essential. What's more, a chapter on street musicians shows that relationships between music and healing are evident in contexts other than just religious rituals. Scholars in musicology, anthropology, music therapy, psychology, religious studies, African Studies, and others interested in healing and/or music will find this text relevant. It is suggested that a workable music therapy for Africa needs an understanding of practices of healing in Africa that apply music, such as those discussed.