Sense and Sadness is an innovative study of music modality in relation to human emotion and the aesthetics of perception. It is also a musical story of survival through difficulty and pain. Focusing on chant at St George's Syrian Orthodox Church of Aleppo, author Tala Jarjour puts forward the concept of the emotional economy of aesthetics, which enables a new understanding of modal musicality in general and of Syriac musicality in particular. Jarjour combines insights from musicology and ethnomusicology, sound and religious studies, anthropology, history, East Christian and Middle Eastern studies, and the study of emotion, to seamlessly weave together multiple strands of a narrative which then becomes the very story it tells. Drawing on imagination and metaphor, she brings to the fore overlapping, at times contradictory, modes of sense and sense making. At once intimate and analytical, this ethnographic text entwines academic thinking with its subject(s) and subjectivities, portraying events, writing, people, and music as they unfold together through ritual commemorations and a devastating, ongoing war.

PrefaceTelling history in motionDismantled machineryIllusive empowermentPart OneModes of ThinkingChapter IEmotion and the Aesthetic[Snapshot]Emotion and the Economy of AestheticsThe emotional economy of aestheticsA living musicCentral marginalityMusic complexityMode as metaphorUnderstanding through imaginationA dynamic outlook on method[Snapshot]A scholarship of emotionDiscursive subjectivitiesScholar(ship) and subject(s)Situationality as liminalityAestheticizing the emotionalChapter IIEdessan Christians in Hayy al-SuryanUnique sounds, against historic oddsSyriac liturgy and theologyModern Christianity with ancient rootsBegging pardon: ShubqonoForty times "Forty Bows"Early asceticism for modern worshippersBody, voice, and gendered spacesPart TwoModes of KnowledgeChapter IIIEight Old Syriac ModesDefinitions and toolsConventional European toolsLocal toolsMusic book and ontological valueWritten Sources"The Ethicon" and "The Pearls"Suryani musicology"Tableau sans ombres"Re-shifting focusChapter IVChant As Local KnowledgeContested modalityA monastic perspectiveMusic knowledge and Hayy al-SuryanTranscriptionTheoretical issuesLocal challengesHandwriting traditionKnowledge, modality, and influencesPart ThreeModes of ValueChapter VSuryaninessEthnic spiritualityPlace/space and Urfa/EdessaLanguageSound originalitySacred textsSacred melodiesChapter VIPerforming ValueThe Washing of the FeetBuilding up sadnessChapter VIIAuthorityPerforming authority[Snapshot] Value, one morning, and a cameraVoicing authorityPerformative complexityPart FourModalities of Song and EmotionChapter VIIIHashoHuzn as religious aestheticHasho, a Syriac termCanonic sadnessAestheticized emotionalityBy the crossHasho, the modeEpilogueNon-ConclusionsGlossaryReferences