Monday, June 4, 2007

Lullabies of the world

Lullabies of the WorldI ran into the website for 'Lullabies of the World' back when I was researching Jewish lullabies. The creators of the site have selected and animated a set of lullabies from around the world. Here's how they describe their project...

METRONOME FILM presents 'Lullabies of the world' - a collection of animated films based on lullabies of different nations. Our movies are made for everybody, but mostly for children. The viewer will feel as if he is lulled by a loving mother. Every lullaby is performed in its original language. The plot of the movie is based on the story told in the lullaby. Visual images reflect the lifestyle and traditions of each nation.
Their site, at least the English language version, doesn't work very well and I never could find the Jewish (Yiddish) lullaby. A recent post on the Jewish Music mailing list from Konsonans Retro, though, pointed out that all of the videos have been posted on YouTube. I should have guessed. Konsonans also pointed out that 'Efim Chorny is the featured artist for the Jewish song.' Other videos from the collection are also on YouTube. Check them out.



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jack:

Funny thing about lullabies is that sometimes children decide what will put them to sleep. While we sang Numi, Numi or Durme, Durme (we are Sephardi) she decided that of all things a niggun was to her liking. Simply Tsfat has a slow niggun entitled L'cha Dodi. We just hum it and she's out. Its automatic.

Rich

Jack said...

That's great. My little ones have gotten really attached to Ma Tovu. It's not quite automatic, but helpful.

Thanks for the pointer to Simply Tsfat. I hadn't run across them. I see they have L'cha Dodi on more than one of their albums, which album has the melody your daughter likes? I'd love to hear which one they use.I grew up with L'cha Dodi as part of the Friday night service and know a couple of different melodies. Let me know and I'll grab the album from Sameach Music.

Jack

Anonymous said...

L'cha Dodi has always been my favorite as well. It has an interesting history (see Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz or Al-Kabets and is associated with Tsfat, which is a beautiful town.

The album New Beginnings has two versions. The one that became a lullaby is largely instrumental--violins--I think that the only actual words are "L'cha Dodi" and "Shabbos" with the remainder being the nye, nye, nye, nye, that make up nuggunim.

Rich

Jack said...

Ok. I'll get a copy of New Beginnings. And I'll look into the history of L'cha Dodi, too. Sounds like fun.

Anonymous said...

Sara and I watched the lullaby video and both liked it. Is there a way you could post the English translation on your blog? On a completely non-Jewish note, if you enjoy the animation in that video, you may like the video for Paranoid Android by Radiohead. Check it out on YouTube if you have free time.

nate

Jack said...

Hi Nate. I'll see what I can do. The web site doesn't list the song title, but I'll contact them and see if they'll tell me.