Music relates to religion in a variety of ways, both in the belief systems or in the control of power. Both are culture universals. As we do not know music´s own empirical universals, the comprehensive study of its association with the sacred is a double challenge. Concentrating on man and to understand him better, the search for origins held in common is an option. Though it is a process that de-emphasizes the musical monuments of religions proper and of the ways of salvation, Western and Eastern achievements will not be overlooked. Back to the remote past, the millennia that articulated humanly organized sounds into symbols are of a crucial importance. The angles, ideas, revisions, methods of approach to the lack of available evidence are the variations of our title. From an ethnomusicological perspective, the issues that have been brought back to life are neither about what kind of music was made, nor about the processes by which music was first created, but the reasons, i.e. the need for its existence (functions).
Religion and music; Origins and functions; Models; Instruments
