In This Issue: Yale Journal of Music & Religion 7, no. 1 (2021)

The Yale Journal of Music & Religion (YJMR) is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal publishing scholarship on sacred music in all its ritual, artistic, and cultural contexts across a range of methodologies.

ARTICLES
Early Modern Scottish Metrical Psalmody: Origins and Practice
Timothy Duguid, University of Glasgow
Non-literate societies are often dependent on music for transmitting news and ideas because of music’s ability to enhance memory. Sixteenth-century reformers were aware of this, but they had to compete with secular and Roman Catholic music that often contradicted Reformed doctrine. Highly influenced by the Strasbourg-based Martin Bucer and the writings of Saint Augustine, John Calvin insisted that Biblical Psalms, set in vernacular poetry, were most appropriate for both corporate worship and private devotion. The result was a series of metrical psalters that were intended to be performable by everyone. Some editions had explicitly liturgical designs, but most were intended for secular use as substitutes to secular ballads. The melodies that appeared in these psalters were usually simple and employed ranges that rarely exceeded an octave. It has generally been assumed that these narrow ranges would have allowed men, women, and children to sing the psalms together comfortably, singing in octaves with one another. However, a closer look reveals that the ranges of many metrical psalm tunes may have been difficult to sing. The following study explores the psalters produced by three centres of early modern Calvinist psalmody: Geneva, England, and Scotland. It argues that singers likely selected pitch ranges that were most comfortable rather than strictly adhering to those printed in metrical psalters. Despite this flexible performance practice, printers and editors faithfully reproduced the tunes in their original ranges. This sheds light on the shadowy origins of metrical psalm tunes, some of which were known before they became metrical psalms.

Sankyoku Magazine and the Invention of the Shakuhachi as Religious Instrument in Early 20th-Century Japan
Matt Gillan, International Christian University – Tokyo
The early 20^th century was a period in which understandings of music, religion, and the nation-state underwent rapid change in Japan. In this article I examine Japanese cultural discourse from the first decades of the 20^th century in which the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute, was frequently portrayed as a religious instrument. In some cases, this discourse referenced pre-20^th century historical affiliations of the shakuhachi with the Fuke-sect, an organization that was loosely affiliated to Rinzai Zen Buddhism. But the article also explores how religio-musical discourse surrounding the shakuhachi intersected with developments in modern Japanese religious life, as well as pre-WWII developments in the political life of Japan and Asia. Drawing primarily on articles from Sankyoku, one of the most important music magazines in early 20^th century Japan, I show how public discourse contained in the media and other forms of writing is an important way to understand the rapid developments taking place in music and religion in Japan at this time.

Vatican II, Liberation Theology, and Vernacular Masses for the Family of God in Central America
Bernard J. Gordillo, University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States
The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) instituted reforms in the Catholic Church that included changes in language and music employed in the liturgy, inspiring a proliferation of sung vernacular masses throughout Latin America. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research undertaken in Nicaragua and the United States, this article examines three Central American vernacular masses—Misa típica panameña de San Miguelito (1967), Misa popular nicaragüense (1969), and Misa campesina nicaragüense (1975). Each mass emanated from communities founded as part of the transnational Familia de Dios (Family of God) movement, which established programs of religious education, leadership training, and community building among impoverished populations. This study seeks to situate music and the arts within the liberation practices and transmission of Familia de Dios, and their role in the origins of a theology of liberation in Latin America.