The Introduction sets the stage for a study of Guru Nanak’s sensuous poetics by introducing his multidimensional persona: poet-songster-jeweller-prophet-pragmatic philosopher. Guru Nanak’s body-sanctifying (somatophilial) poetic textures resonant with love for the all-inclusive One (theophilia), extending to fellow beings (anthropophilia) and the environment (biophilia). They construct a new paradigm that celebrates all physical phenomena, each passing instant, and everybody. These hymns have the potential to make their way beyond Sikh religious discourses and spaces of worship to their public multisensory reception so new imaginaries and wholistic existentialities can be reproduced in today’s hyperpolarized society. The study draws upon the author’s feminist translation impulse, and a wide range of sources from classical rasa theory to various western studies of aesthetics (Mark Johnson, Hélène Cixous, Richard Shusterman, John Dewey, Plato). The overall approach, framework for the book, and its significance are outlined in the Introduction. Also staged is a Nanakian concert (Prelude): inviting world audiences to attend Guru Nanak’s virtuoso performance.

Drumming is often pigeonholed as solely a visceral experience. Although it is almost impossible to hide this visceral nature, it undoubtedly has cognitive components, which supports the idea of music as an embodied activity. In this essay, I analyse John Bonham’s performance on Led Zeppelin’s ‘When the Levee Breaks’ (1971) to demonstrate how cognitive scientist Mark Johnson’s five dimensions of the human body (biological, ecological, phenomenological, social, and cultural) can reveal meaning in drumming. By applying all five levels to the song one at a time, I peel back layers of meaning. In Johnson’s final level, I propose what I term a Tonic Beat Pattern Theory based on tension and release that serves as a method of drum analysis across rock music to explain how drummers contribute to affect and meaning. In any band, the drummer is the main driver of rhythm and groove. Drummers create musical trajectories in songs that not only make fans wiggle our hips, move our feet, and bang our heads, but also, create just about any affect the song calls for. This essay begins to uncover why rock drumming matters.