Satan's Flute:Belief in Music and Psychological Disturbance

The study is based on an observation that some professional flute players in Sudan are psychologically disturbed. This problem has been observed by the researcher and by many professionals in the field of music in Sudan. But two thousands years ago a Greek philosopher had a similar observation correlating flute playing to mental disturbance.i Such a problem seems to be an interest to many other disciplines, such as psychology, psychotherapy, physiology and even religion. Yet this study will look at the problem from the perspective of folklore, which is a discipline that is also concerned with musical culture, including behavior and activities. And, musical culture, as part of a whole, is concerned with ideas of people about music, including belief-systems, notions and behavior that are strongly correlated to the musician's normality or disturbance. The study of such a cultural problem requires the utilization of many disciplines.