“Folk Gagaku” and the Sonic World of Shinto Rituals

While Gagaku or Japanese court music has been integral to both imperial and local Shinto ceremonies, including various matsuri (festivals), its ritual function remains underexplored in religious and ritual studies. This paper explores the role of “folk Gagaku” in Shinto rituals, emphasizing its significance in the comparative study of religious rituals. Examining small-scale, amateur Gagaku groups in Shiga prefecture, my presentation highlights how localized ritual practices interact with institutional traditions. Presenting ethnographic data and field recordings, I contrast these performances with the imperial Gagaku tradition, revealing tensions between orthodox ritual frameworks and vernacular expressions of sacred sound. The paper advocates for a “sonic turn” in religious studies, employing acoustemology (Feld 2015) to explore Shinto sound culture (Ōuchi 2021). Challenging text-centric approaches, I call for a more integrated understanding of ritual soundscapes, demonstrating the centrality of auditory experience to the study of lived religion.