The Music of Prayer
From left to right: Kagura Suzu bells, used by Shinto priests: Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere Mei, sung by the Kings College Choir; Bach/Gounod “Ave Maria” sung by Saint Patrick’s Choir, Fort Worth, Texas; a Tibetan singing bowl; Ghanta bells being rung outside a Hindu temple
Recently, I had an experience that inspired me, and I wanted to share my thoughts with all of you.
In many cultures, people pray for the coming year to be a good one. In Japan, we have a tradition of visiting Shinto shrines at the beginning of the new year and receiving a ritual prayer. During this ritual, a Shinto priest performs a purification using kagura suzu (神楽鈴), a set of small sacred bells.
I recently visited a shrine for New Year prayers, and during the ritual, I was deeply moved by the sound of the bells. They were incredibly beautiful, and I felt as if my heart was being washed clean—purified by the sound itself.
This experience led me to focus on the idea of “purifying sounds,” and I became curious about what kinds of sounds and instruments serve a similar purpose in other cultures and religions beyond Japanese shrines.
The first example that came to mind from my own experience was the Christian Church. Church bells, of course, but especially the choir and the pipe organ. When listening in a church, the music is often performed from a high position near the ceiling, and I remember feeling as though the sound was descending from above—from heaven itself. This created a strong sense of the sacred. I began to wonder whether the voices of the choir, particularly those of children, have historically been regarded as angelic voices.
As I researched other cultures and religions, I found that in Tibet there is the singing bowl—a metal bowl that is struck or rubbed to produce long-lasting overtones. It is used for meditation and healing.
In Hindu temples, bells are placed at the entrance, and worshippers ring them themselves before entering, symbolically clearing the mind before prayer.
Many of these sounds—often metallic, relatively high in pitch, and resonant—seem to share a common purpose: to cleanse the heart, to quiet the mind, and to help people turn inward and face themselves or the divine in silence. In this sense, sound itself seems to carry a sacred power—a form of prayer.
There are, of course, many different kinds of timbres. For example, the viola, with its slightly lower register, often feels to me like the human voice.
I also find that Franz Liszt frequently instructs pianists to play with the sound of other instruments in mind. For instance, in Réminiscences de Norma, which I plan to perform at Carnegie Hall, Liszt writes quasi timpani. In the Paganini Étude La chasse (“The Hunt”), he suggests the sound of horns, and in Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10, he evokes the cimbalom, a traditional Hungarian instrument. This suggests that Liszt did not think of the piano as producing merely “piano sound,” but rather as a vehicle for storytelling and orchestral color within a single instrument.
Lately, I have been feeling very strongly that music itself is a form of prayer. It does not have to be a chorale or explicitly religious; it can also take the shape of human drama. Sound, once again, reveals itself as something that purifies, that prays, that carries emotion and tells stories—almost like a love letter.
I am deeply grateful to be able to play the piano, an instrument with such a wide range, capable of transforming itself into many different instruments, voices, and emotional colors. It is truly a joyful and meaningful process.
Tap an icon below to share this blog on social media, email, or your favorite messaging app.
