Learning Jewish Liturgy Online

Daniel Sieradski, of Jewschool.com, is a very smart, very engaged, and sometimes controversial figure in the Jewish community. Personally, I place him very high on my list of people I really want to chat with over beer and plan the revolution. Which revolution will vary by the mood we're in. There are about a dozen or so that I can think of.

Dan can think of even more. In fact, he's thought of so many he's going open source with the whole idea of revolution. He recently started a website called "31 days, 31 ideas" where he lays out the blueprints for 31 revolutions that he feels need to happen. Each is, at it's heart, a simple idea. But each, if implemented well, could have a significant positive impact on the Jewish community. Each is a technical tool conceived of to solve a significant social/religious problem. To give you a taste of what he's thinking about, here are the titles of three of his ideas (he's published 9 so far):

• Pop-Up Parsha: "I love the Sunlight Foundation, the D.C.-based philanthropic foundation which provides support to hackers working on software projects that increase transparency and accountability in government. My ultimate wish is to see the creation of something similar for the Jewish community — a laboratory that develops solutions that increase, if not the transparency of our communal institutions, the transparency and accessibility of our tradition itself.
• The Open Source Beit Midrash: Yesterday, I spoke about the need to create a repository of sacred Jewish texts encoded in XML, a format that would enable software developers to take the creation of Jewish educational Web applications to the next level. Today, I’m going to show you an application I’ve been dreaming about in various incarnations for about five years, The Open Source Beit Midrash, which will only be possible when such a repository comes into existence.
• Niggun Please: Jewish Liturgical Music Database: Yesterday I talked about a tool, the Jewish Book Builder, that would help individuals and communities create their own prayerbooks and looked at some current implementations of that idea, including the Open Siddur Project. In my post, I described “a future in which creating customized siddurim, bentshers, haggadot, chumashim and all manner of liturgical and scriptural books is as commonplace as making a mixtape (or an MP3 playlist, as it were)." Today’s project is actually about further personalizing the prayer experience by providing a means for Jews to explore and learn the music of tefillah (Jewish prayer) by making for themselves downloadable audio playlists, and for the Jewish community to compile collectively the sum knowledge of their musical heritage by contributing to an open database of niggunim (liturgical melodies).

Ok, so go figure that last one got me all worked up. What a fantastic idea. If you care about liturgical music at all, go read the whole concept. It deals head on with two separate but related issues...the ability to pray in a group, which is central to Jewish practice, and the ability to learn new prayers in order to do the former. Jewish communities do not all use the same melodies, even if they are using the same prayerbook. When prayerbooks vary, or when the community does a lot of supplementing of the prayerbook, the differences between communites goes up dramatically. To someone entering the community, or even just visiting, this can be a substantial and alienating barrier even when the people in the community are welcoming and supportive. I've experienced it many times. In fact, every time I've moved (which I won't count here).

I don't have the time or energy right now to build the system that Dan is advocating, but I'm going to think more about it. Maybe someday I'll take the plunge. For the moment I wanted to share it and to pass along a few temporary stop-gaps. The first couple Dan mentions in his post, the rest are my contributions. All are websites that provide audio recordings of prayers that can be used to help us expand our knowledge, our ability to pray in groups, and our ability to join with new groups as the circumstances require.

From Dan...

1. SiddurAudio.com - "the work of a Conservative rabbi who recorded himself singing Friday night services and posted the audio online"

2. Kol Zimrah Resources - "created by Shir Yaakov Feinstein-Feit for congregants of the independent minyan he had co-founded in New York"

3. Sing! the audio weblog for niggunum

4. Neohasid.org’s niggun database

5. Chabad.org’s audio collection, "which contains a vast number of popular Chabad niggunim"

6. An Invitation to Piyut, a massive Israeli database of liturgical music

7. The Zemirot Database, "a project of a group of young Conservative Jews who, in 2007, took the initiative unto themselves to create a project very similar to the one"

Here are some of my additions...

7. HotShabbat.com and TotShabbat.com Both websites are maintained by the Hava Nashira community, which supports the pop-liturgical / songleader community. Both sites have audio recordings, often supplied by the composer / performer, of a wide variety of prayers & songs. TotShabbat, as the name implies, focuses on kids services.

8. Hebrewsongs.com While better for pop & folk songs, and better on lyrics than audio recordings, HebrewSongs does have a number of liturgical pieces available and is worth checking out.

9. VirtualCantor.com A skilled cantor has recorded a huge array of Shabbat, weekday, festival and holiday nusach. Each recording is well indexed and easily findable.

10 Project Z'mirot One of my personal favorites, "Project Z'mirot allows Jews from around the globe to share their favorite Ruach songs and melodies, and to learn new songs from others. "

11. Zemirot Project (not to be confused with Project Z'mirot or the Zemirot Database). A smaller collection of Shabbat and festival prayers, with page references to the NCSY bencher.

12. Sephardic Pizmonim Project Similar to the Invitation to Piyut site you mentioned. Huge archive of recorded Sepharidc pizmonim, including prayers, cantillations, maqams, and pizmonim.

13. Sephardic Hazzanut Project Similar to Virtual Cantor, but focusing on Sephardic nusach. The recordings are from a single Sephardic cantor working his way through "all the parashiot and Shahrit of Shabbat for all the main seven maqamot."

14. And finally, of course, You Tube. There are few popular Shabbat or festival prayers that haven't been video taped and uploaded at some point.

None of this should suggest that learning by yourself is the best answer. Learning with others is always preferable, but sometimes it's not just not possible or timely. So check out these resources. And, if you interested in taking on Dan's challenge of implementing a Jewish liturgy database, give Dan a yell.

The Sephardic Hazzanut Project

Faraj Samra is well on his way to completing the very ambitious Sephardic Hazzanut Project. Samra, a Sephardic hazzan (cantor) from Damascus, Syria, had noticed that "that many people have trouble singing the taamim properly and reading the Torah correctly" and that "Sephardic music tapes ... and lessons with an experienced Hazzan" are very expensive options. Inspired by the Sephardic Pizmonim Project, he decided to help out by "record[ing] all the parashiot and Shahrit of Shabbat for all the main seven maqamot." That's a pretty large undertaking but he's off to a good start, having recording over a dozen parsha, the Shahrit, High Holidays chazzanut and daily tefilah, and a lot more.

Hat Tip to Eva Broman & the KlezmerShack mailing list for the link.

Life Magazine Photo Archive

Folks, another treasure trove has been opened up. Google has made the entire photo archive of Life Magazine available on the internet. (We loves the internets). Here's a description from Ewen MacAskill writing for the Guardian (UK).

"One of the biggest photo collections in the world that ranges from the 1880s through to the seminal moments of the 20th century and on into the present day was made available to the public online from today. The bulk of the archive is from Life magazine, the premier platform for photojournalists in the 20th century. About 10m images will be available, from Marilyn Monroe and JFK to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. About 97% of the pictures have never been seen before. Google announced today it had done a deal with Life to put their pictures online. Also available is work from other archives, much of it collected by the former Time publisher, Henry Luce."

Here are a few fabulous photo's that I found on a quick skim the through the collection. But don't stop here, do your own searches.
A scene showing the cast from the light comic opera, "La Belle Helene", as produced by Jewish group. Photograph by John Phillips, 1943, Israel.


Ceremony of a Jewish Hasidic wedding. Photograph by Yale Joel, 1959, US.



Israeli pilgrims to shrine on Mt. Meron of 2nd century Jewish mystics, celebrate Lag B'Omer day with music. Photograph by Paul Schutzer, 1960, Israel.

JewsRock.Org - A Challah Fame

Personally, I don't invest much time in speculating on whether Scott Ian of Anthrax's Judaism impacts his music. Unless he says it does, I'm not going to think much about it. But JewsRock.Org is "devoted to illuminating the intersection of rock and roll and Jewish culture. We've heard a lot about what the Jews have contributed to science, literature, the fine arts--all the high brow stuff. Well, we're going low." Cataloging and speculating on Ian's Judaism is exactly the sort of thing that keeps JewsRock up at night. According to their website, here's how it all began...

"Do you remember the anthrax-in-the-mail panic of 2001? At the time, David Segal, who was then the pop music critic of The Washington Post, was without an angle on the most important news story of the week. He had just one idea: Call the legendary speed-metal band Anthrax and ask if the group was thinking of changing its suddenly infamous name. He wound up on a cell phone with Scott Ian, the lead guitarist, who fired off one quip after another about his groupﾒs new predicament. Ian said that friends had been joking about how funny it would be if he were to die from anthrax poisoning, prompting him to start taking Cipro, the anthrax antibiotic. Why?

"I have vowed that I will not die an ironic death," he deadpanned on the phone.

The story ran in the paper, and Segal soon got a call from his friend, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was, at the time, the Middle East correspondent of The New Yorker. Goldberg told him he loved the quote from Ian. "I bet that guy is Jewish," Goldberg said. Segal asked why. It was that peculiar combination of irony and hypochondria in Ianﾒs answer, Goldberg said, that offered the best clue. A little digging, and Goldberg and Segal found out, of course, that it was true: Scott Ian is a member of the tribe."

The article lead to a website devoted to, well, cataloging and speculating. And if you're the sort of person that grooves on knowing that Paula Abdul is of Syrian Jewish descent, that David Lee Roth is dedicated to overturning Jewish stereotypes, that you can read a d'var Torah based on Steely Dan's "Any Major Dude", or that "[m]any of Judaism's most dearly held traditions are also prevalent in indie rock" than this is the place for you.

In honor of JewsRock.Org's connection with Scott Ian, here's a live concert video of Anthrax covering Joe Jackson's "Got The Time." Great track. I could say that the obsessive urban work driven alienation of the song comments on Jewish cultural tendency toward knowledge- and work-based forms of identity development. But if I did, I'd be speculating.



Hat tip to YouTube user Thraxfan54 for posting the video.

a fast top 10

I got a nice email the other day from someone who doesn't "know the first thing about Jewish music ... [but] and every Jewish song I've heard sounded beautiful, so I was hoping you'd let me know what to get & where to start etc?"

So, here's a fast top 10 I put together. The goal of the list was to give a broad overview of traditional styles, focusing on some personal favorites & contemporary recordings. The list was not meant to be comprehensive and short-changes lots of wonderful bands & recordings. What do you all think? What's your top 10? What would you recommend?

First, you might listen to this last.fm radio station

http://www.last.fm/listen/user/Leyele/personal

The user is a friend of mine and has great taste. You'll hear lots of great Jewish music.

Jewish music encompasses a number of different genre's, so I'll tell you a bit about the most important ones as I do my top 10 list, ok?

Klezmer - Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish music (e.g. from Russia, Poland, Germany). This is secular folk dancing music. Klezmerim were traveling musicians who played at parties and weddings. It can be very moody and dark as well.

1. I haven't listened to it yet, but the new Rough Guide to the Klezmer Revival has a nice sampling of contemporary Klezmer.
http://www.amazon.com/Rough-Guide-Klezmer-Revival/dp/B0013D8JTW/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1214388866&sr=1-6

2. The band Budowitz, from x is one of my favorite contemporary klezmer groups. Their album "Mother Tongue" is marvelous.
band website: http://www.budowitz.com/Budowitz/Home.html

3. One of my favorite albums of all time, Andy Statman and Dave Grisman's "Song of our Fathers" is a lovely contemporary album mixing klezmer and Jewish Hassidic songs
http://www.amazon.com/Songs-Fathers-Statman-David-Grisman/dp/B000003919/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1214389080&sr=1-7
"
4. Another one of my personal favorites, Davka's Judith mixes klezmer with chamber music and gives it a wild middle eastern lilt.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_m?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=davka+judith&x=0&y=0

5. While not klezmer, Wolf Krakowski does an amazing job mixing Yiddish folk music with American roots music. This one has been in heavy rotation lately. http://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=7166

A second major strain of Jewish music comes from the Sephardic Jews, whose culture was established in the 1400's in Spain and was then dispersed around the Mediterranean. The song Ocho Kalendekas that [my correspondant] sent the link to is a contemporary American Sephardic song written by Flory Jagoda, a Sephardic Jew from Yugoslavia.

6. Flory Jagoda. Jagoda is a top notch singer and musican in the Sephardic style. The rhythms of her music has a definite Balkan feel.
http://www.floryjagoda.com/

7. Janet & Jak Esim Ensemble. The Esim's are from Turkey and play in a wonderful lyrical style. You can hear samples at
http://www.oz-ist.com/artist.asp?id=13 and see their recordings at
http://www.cdroots.com/esim.shtml

8. Pharoah's Daughter. Basya Shecter and her band play an amazing modern Sephardic music, strong in tradition buy dizzyingly psychedelic at times too. http://www.pharaohsdaughter.com/ My favorite album is Out of the Reeds http://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=7187

The third major area of Jewish music is Misrachi, or Middle Eastern.

9. Ofra Haza is the queen of Misrachi music. She was an Israeli Jew of
Yemenite descent. Her album Homeland Songs is my personal favorite.
(more about her - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofra_Haza) You can find
a lot of her albums on Amazon
(http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=ofra+haza&x=0&y=0)

10. David Broza is an Israeli pop singer who brings together elements of Ashkenazi, Separdic and Misrachi music. His album Massada 99 - Starting to Breath is one of my favorites.
http://www.israel-music.com/david_broza/massada_99_starting_to_breath/

And finally

11. Fiddler on the Roof. This is a classic American musical and is just as loved today as it was when it was first produced.
http://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Roof-Special-Topol/dp/B00005N7YZ

There are a lot of aspects of Jewish music I haven't mentioned, but hopefully these are a good start. If you find things you like, let me know and I can point you to more.

So what do you all think? What would your list look like?

Jewish Music: Contexts and Categories

Sorry folks, no music this time. I just wanted to pass along an interesting email exchange I recently had with Eva Heinstein of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She works on the Thesaurus of Jewish Music and maintains their blog, Jewish Music Research. She wrote to me let me know about their website and we got to talking about Jewish music. Go figure. I posed her a question that's been bugging me and got an interesting reply. Here we go...

JACK: "I'm wondering if you or one of your colleagues might be able to set me straight on a music theory question that has been perplexing me. One of my observations studying and writing about Jewish music is that it is very diverse, but in relatively systematic ways. It's easy, for example, to categorize Jewish music by geography region or temporal period, for example. It's also (usually) easy to make gross genre comparisons (e.g. a klezmer doina vs a Ladino love song). There is another set of comparisons that I typically make but that I lack good terminology for, the distinction between the contexts in which a composer expects the musical work to be performed. For example, a musical setting for the liturgical piyot might initially be intended for vocal performance in concert setting, then get adopted into a communities shul-based Kabbalat Shabbat service, and then get re-arranged as performance piece by a rock band. As noted, I could describe the shift as "art music" to "liturgical music" to "popular music" or "choral" to "liturgical" to "rock." Those are meaningful comparisons but seem to miss the point. The big comparison that I see is the shift from a performance context to a practice context back to a performance context. Not being well grounded in musicology, I struggle with terms. Is "context" an appropriate term? If so what kind of context categories have been recognized?"

EVA: As for your question, I thought immediately about a paper that was presented at a conference in London last year. Suzel Anna Reily presented a paper, which examines whether the traditional musicological categories of folk, art and popular music still apply. While you are also speaking about liturgical and para-liturgical performance contexts, I think the idea behind the paper very much speaks to your question.

The head of the department here at Hebrew University, Professor Edwin Seroussi, speaks about the blurring of contexts and categories in musicological research often in his seminars. I read a paper of his recently that follows the "journey" of one Judeo-Spanish romance "Las Horas de La Vida" from its original folk contexts, to research anthologies, to commercial recordings, and back again. In the paper, he essentially tries to tease out how the folksong became one of the most performed and recorded pieces in the Judeo-Spanish repertoire. What becomes clear is that the categories of art, folk, research and commercial overlap and influence one another greatly. So, I think you are right in feeling that there is movement between contexts or categories, and that the traditional categories are too stringent for the kind of musical phenomena we see today (maybe they were always too stringent?).

I think your sense of performance versus practice contexts is generally understood in scholarship as art versus folk or popular categories. However, we know today that just because music is performed on stage, doesn't make it art music. Likewise, just because music is performed in a communal or family context doesn't necessarily make if "folk" or "popular." So again, I think we come back to the same problem of overly-simplified categories that no long really apply to the varied and multiple contexts in which the same musics (or variations of the same music) are performed.

So what do you folks think? What kinds of categories and contexts make sense to you?

Eva also provided this set of useful pointers in the ethnomusicology field. This is an area where I know nothing and need to get a bit smarter.

Journals:
1)Ethnomusicology the Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology
2) Ethnomusicology Forum (formerly British Journal of Ethnomusicology) published by Routledge
3) Yearbook for Traditional Music published by the International Council for Traditional Music at Columbia University
4) Popular Music published by the Cambridge University Press
5)Musica Judaica the Journal of the American Society for Jewish Music
6) Israel Studies in Musicology the journal of the Israel Musicological Society\
7) Yuval (our journal!) published by the Jewish Music Research Centre (There is also the Yuval Music series which publish musical anthologies on different areas of Jewish musical traditions).
8) Not sure how your Hebrew is, but דוכן is an important Jewish music journal published by the Rennanot Center for Jewish Music in Israel

Books/Authors:

A short list:

John Blacking's How Musical is Man? and Music, Culture & Experience: Selected Papers of John Blacking. He was a very important thinker and founder of the discipline.

Bruno Nettl's The Study of Ethnomusicology. An important book that deals with definitions, methodologies, and a number of central issues in the dicipline.

Kay Kaufman Shelemay. She is the head of the department of Musicology at Harvard, and a very impressive academic. Her writing is delightful, and she has done a lot of work with Jewish music (Let Jasmine Rain Down is her study of the musical traditions of the Syrian Jewish Community in Brooklyn). She put out an annotated collection of articles dealing with core definitions and the scope of Ethnomusicology titled Ethnomusicology: History, Definitions, and Scope.

Mark Slobin. Has published a number of studies on Jewish music revival movements, particularly the Klezmer revival movement. He always approaches his case studies with more fundamental questions about music making, culture, religion, and identity. His writing is very thought provoking.

If you are looking for information on a specific ethnic music the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music is a great resource. It includes ten volumes, each focuses on another area of the World

Other helpful Websites:

1) Grove Music: You might already be aware of Grove Music Online, you need a subscription, but most libraries have access to the online version. The URL is www.grovemusic.com. In addition to information on specific composers and genres, it has some great articles on bigger ideas and questions from a musicological perspective (for example there is a great article written by Richard Tarushkin on Nationalism and Music)

2) Milken Archive of Jewish Music: http://www.milkenarchive.org/. You have probably also come across this website, but if you haven't, it is a great resource. Lots of bio's, interviews, recordings etc...

3) The Molly and Robert Jewish Sound Archive Website: http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/freedman/ An amazing database that includes thousands of Jewish music recordings.

4) Brown University Yiddish Sheet Music Archive http://dl.lib.brown.edu/sheetmusic/yiddish/. A great website with full Yiddish music scores scanned in, and a lot of great general information about Yiddish theater music and research.

Conferences/Lectures:

1) Jewish Music Forum Lecture Series http://www.jewishmusicforum.org/. A very interesting lecture series that covers a wide variety of topics in Jewish music research. I was able to attend a few while I was a student in NYC, and I enjoyed them tremendously.

2) World Congress of Jewish Studies http://www.jewish-studies.org/. Next year it is going to be at Hebrew University. There are always papers submitted on Jewish Music, many of which can viewed in full text through Lekket the Web based collection of Jewish studies articles: http://www.jewish-studies.org/ShowDoc.asp?MenuID=60

Thanks Eva, I really appreciate the discussion and pointers!

A Guide Kaddish in 16 Tracks

I ran into a great article recently that I thought I'd share. Cantor Andrew Bernard writing in the Reform Jewish Magazine in the Spring 2007 issue offers an article "Sounds of Kaddish" along with a companion set of audio samples, "A Guide to Kaddish through 16 Music Tracks." The article and audio samples highlight the variety of forms and presentations of the Kaddish prayers.

To give you an idea of the article content, here's the first section. To read whole thing, go to "Sounds of Kaddish."

"When most Jews think of the Kaddish, they automatically think of the Mourner’s Kaddish, but we understand there are other forms. Could you tell us about them?

There are actually five forms of Kaddish.

Originally, Kaddish was used to conclude a time of study. This first form, known as Kaddish d’Rabbanan or the Rabbis’ Kaddish, probably dates from the Second Temple period and includes prayers for the blessing of scholars and their disciples, as well as praise of God.

The next two forms of Kaddish serve as prayer markers, telling us where we are in our liturgy. The Chatzi Kaddish—also known as Half Kaddish or, in our Reform prayer book, the Reader’s Kaddish—marks the conclusion of a particular section of the service. Kaddish Shaleim or the Full Kaddish marks the conclusion of the entire service. In this way, Kaddish migrated from the house of study to the house of prayer.

It wasn’t until much later, possibly as late as the thirteenth century, that the fourth kind of Kaddish, Kaddish Yatom or the Mourner’s Kaddish, came into the service, probably in response to the severe persecutions of Jews in Germany at the hands of the Crusaders.

The fifth form is the little-used Kaddish l’ithad’ta or Burial Kaddish. Written at the beginning of the Middle Ages, it is recited at the graveside at the time of burial. Interestingly, it is the only form of Kaddish that includes any reference to death or to resurrection."

I had great fun going through Cantor Bernard's 16 audio selections. Quite the surprising variety. Here are two of my favorites. You can hear the rest at "A Guide to Kaddish through 16 Music Tracks."

Track 1: Leonard Bernstein, Kaddish Symphony, Example I. In the first statement, a Din Torah, in which choir and orchestra present the strident, atonal theme, God is called to judgment for the terrible things going on in the world. From the CD “Kaddish Symphony,” Leonard Bernstein, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, Conductor: Gerard Schwarz, Milken Archive 8.559456, Naxos American Classics. To order click http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=37

Track 5: James Raphael, Kaddish, Example I. Raphael’s Kaddish takes the listener on a journey from mournful lament…From the CD “Kaddish” for piano, James Raphael, Ars Musici Freiberger Musik Forum 1999 AM 1282-2

Cantor Bernard also offers "The Sounds of Kaddish: Discussion & Study Guide".

Shulmusic.org, A repository of mostly Ashkenazi Jewish liturgical music

If you're interested in liturgical music, you should check out the new Shulmusic.org website. It just launched today and loaded with video and audio files, sheet music, and instructional material. And a list of 1700 liturgical composers compiled in the 1950's. I had no idea.

Here are a couple of recordings I particularly enjoyed.

Hashkivenu by Bornstein sung by Hazan Yitzhak Nevo


Yismechu by Robert Brody

Kikar Israel: Your Central Spot for Israeli Music

Israel's 60th birthday has gotten the spotlight aimed at Israel for something other than it's domestic crises for once. And Israeli's have risen to the occasion, burnishing their collective image with lots of new media activity. One new website that grabbed my attention is Kikar Israel "Your Central Spot for Israeli Music." It's an English language website with music videos, charts, band bio's and headline news. If you consider statements like "Ninet shaves her head!" as being a headline.

As a teaser for the good stuff available through Kikar, here's Yael Naim and Din Din Aviv's video for "Mashmauyot"

Din Din Aviv and Yael Naim - Mashmauyot

Do You Know The Words?

I was just catching up on the Life in Israel blog and caught a great pointer to a new Jewish music blog. It's called Know the Words and it wants to help us, well, know the worlds. Specifically, know the words to a repertoire of religious Hebrew language songs that get sung at traditional Jewish simchas. The lyrics are provided, many have audio clips, and lots of commentary on the spiritual qualities of the song. There's some serious work going into this blog, so I hope folks find it and take advantage if it.

For example, the author posted the song "Yamim Al Ye'mei Melech" (which, for the record, I don't know) as follows...

"יָמִים עַל יְמֵי מֶלֶךְ תּוֹסִיף, שְׁנוֹתָיו כְּמוֹ דֺר וָדֺר
Yamim al ye'mei melech tosif, sh'nosav kemo dor va'dor

"Days onto the days of the king may You add, may his years be like all generations." (Tehillim 61:7)

The Pashut explanation given by Rashi on this passuk is that Dovid Hamelech is asking Hashem that even if it has been decreed that he die young at the hand of his enemies, Hashem should remove that decree and grant him the full 70 years of every generation...."

The audio clips are turned off right now because of the Sefira period, but they'll be back up soon. I'm looking forward to it.

As an added bonus, the blog has a link to Yutopia.Yucs.Org's "Jewish Guitar Chord Archive."

Visualizing Jewish Musich

My boss told me recently that I'm an 'infovore.' According to a scientist quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article, our brains are wired information scarcity. When we find information "[we] get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those." In the era of the internet we're in trouble. "We are programmed for scarcity and can't dial back when something is abundant." According to the article, we're just like cat's chasing laser pointers. Yeah tell me about it.

Lately I've been playing with 'network graph' search tools. These tools take an artist, do a 'find related things' search, and then output the results to a visual display. The best one by far, though with the most annoying interface, is the one provided by YouTube. It pops up videos related to the currently playing video. I've found a lot of interesting stuff that way. Considering YouTube by default provides a text list of related videos, I'm not sure the visualization adds much. But it's interesting eye candy. To get this display, click on the video's 'full size' button (bottom right) and then on the full screen displays network button (bottom left). Email me if you can't find it. It took me a couple of trys to find.


YouTube videos related to "LEO FULD - The king of yiddish songs"

While the YouTube visualizer focus on videos, other tools focus on the artists themselves. The tool LivePlasma , below, shows a cluster of artists related to the Klezmatics. The goal of these tools is to help you discover new music by pointing you to artists you might like but might not have known about. The biggest limitation with the tools are the search engines underneath them don't know much about Jewish music. I had to punch in a half a dozen or so popular Jewish music artists before LivePlasma got any hits. The similar programs MusicMap and TuneGlue do a bit better, not enough to get me to come back.

LivePlasma display of artists related to the Klezmatics

So bottom line: these tools are perfect infovore-chow. They feel like they're providing lots of great information, but it's not clear that actually do. If any readers have played with these tools or other related tools, please drop me a line or leave a comment. I'd love to get your impressions.

Clarinet Secrets - book and podcast, includes Klezmer

whew, it's been a long weekend. Sorry for the lack of posts. My wife and I took the wigglers to visit a cousin out of state and I made and kept one of my infrequent "no-laptop-on-vacation" promises. But I'm back and my fingers are itching for some blogging, so....

Most of my posts and resources links are directed more at music fans than at musicians. The book and podcast Clarinet Secrets, though, has a delightfully 'wanna-be' feeling that makes it worth sharing. (You know what I mean, "You can play clarinet", "You can make your own bite valve hydration system", "You can make parsley soda"*) While Clarinet Secrets podcast has lots of serious content, it also has episodes titled "Learn how to install your own neck-strap ring for under 1 dollar," Imitating Nature," and "The Chin Exercise." I played clarinet a bit when I was a kid. No one ever taught me "The Chin Exercise." I feel cheated.

The Clarinet Secrets podcast is hosted by "clarinet pedagogue Michele Gingras from Miami University (OH)" to accompany / promote her book recently published by Scarecrow Press. My giggles over chin exercises not withstanding, Gingras' book is subtitled "52 Performance Strategies for the Advanced Clarinetists" and is pretty serious. This isn't another Mel Bay Clarinet Primer.

The podcast and book have sections on Klezmer, including presentation repertoire, techniques, and ornamentation. I'm looking forward to listening to them.

* For lots more delightful "You can do its", visit www.instructables.com If you think I've got too much time on my hands, I ain't got nothing on the folks who write for Instructables. They actually build that stuff.

Chosen Voices and The Virtual Cantor

I started reading Mark Slobin's "Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate" this past weekend. Here's part of the book jacket blurb:

The job of the hazzan–-much more than the traditional "messenger to God"–-is deeply embedded in cultural, social, and religious symbolism, negotiated between the congregation and its chosen voices. Drawing on archival sources, interviews with cantors, and photographs, Slobin traces the development of the American cantorate from the nebulous beginnings of the hazzan as a recognizable figure through the heyday of the superstar sacred singer in the early twentieth century to a diverse portrait of today's cantorate, which now includes women as well as men.

I haven't made it past Slobin's introduction so I don't have anything all that interesting to share yet. There was one bit in the intro that I really resonated with, though. In a section called "A Note to Ethonomusicologists" Slobin explained, a bit apologetically, that he had conducted 'in-group' ethnomusicology (meaning that he was a member of the group, Jews, that he was studying). He didn't apologize for doing this since he wasn't a cantor and knew little about cantors at the start of the project. He just noted that "1) the author expresses insider sensibilities and addresses the groups concerns as well as those of scholarship, and 2) non-Jews take less interest in the work as they tend to think of Jewish matters as being special-interest of esoteric. The two factors are interdependent, since despite ones best intentions the insider author tends to either take things for granted or overexplain." (emphasis mine).

I love that statement because it highlights one of my principal challenges blogging about Jewish music. I'm not particularly concerned with scholarship, but I recognize and embrace the fact that some of my readers will know a lot less (or nothing) about Judaism than I do and that some will know an awful lot more. I'm constantly walking the line between taking things for granted and over-explaining. It's nice to hear that I'm not alone in worrying about this.

Any way, I'll report it as I read the book and pass along some good bits and /or my reactions.

On a related note, I wanted to share a new resource I found called "The Virtual Cantor", a site dedicated to "promote the proliferation of Nusach and to make a Nusach readily accessible to those who have a desire to learn and a desire to deepen their Judaism." (Nusach is the style & melodies of Jewish prayer services.) The site has downloadable .mp3 files of Shabbat services and home prayers, High Holiday, and festival services, the Purim Haggadot reading, as well as life cycle events such as weddings and funerals. If you, like me, are either rusty or just learning, this is a great source for self study.

Conservative and Orthodox Songleaders (or, why my safe little definition of songleader is shot)

I mentioned back in July how I had been surprised by my ignorance of the Jewish song leader community. By contrast, I was quite aware of my ignorance of the Orthodox and Chassid communities. While I don't claim that I've developed any expertise over the traditional communities music, I think I've got my head around some of the major themes and musicians. I haven't made similar progress with the song leader community. For example, back in the July post I made the mistake of implying that the song leader is community is exclusively a Reform Jewish phenomena. It isn't. And I'm finally starting to get a bit smarter about why I was wrong.

What happened is that I finally got myself signed up for the Hava Nashira mailing list. Hava Nashira is a "resource for Jewish songleaders, songwriters, performers, music educators and all those involved in the transmission of Jewish heritage, religion and culture through music." I've only been signed up for a couple of days and it's already making a big difference in my understanding of the community. Part of that difference came from an email conversation I had with Adrian Durlester, the Hava Nashira website organizer.

Example of Jack getting educated:

Jack: "I've used the terms Song Leader community, 'contemporary Jewish music community,' and Reform community as synonyms. That's probably incorrect, but I don't yet know why it's incorrect."

Adrian: "Why Reform/songleader/conmtemporary Jewish liturgical music isn't an automatic association:

1. Sam Glaser, the Baal Shem Tones, Shlomo Carlebach (z"l), Neshoma Carlebach (orthodox)
2. Craig Taubman, Mark Bloom, The Brothers Zim, Safam, Cindy Paley, Kenny Ellis, Rahel (Conservative)
Now, I could make both those lists substantially longer, but no time at the moment..."

Adrian's list is a bit mind-blowing for me. Here's why. I had understood songleaders to be have developed from Reform community participatory service. So what about Conservative song leaders? Ok. I forgot about Camp Ramah, the Conservative movement summer camp (which I sadly didn't attend.) I could see songleaders playing a role there. But Craig Taubman's wonderful "Friday Night Live"? That's the better part of a whole Friday night service. And he's coming from and leading Conservative services? And Orthodox song leaders. The Orthodox community (I thought) was very strict about nusach (traditional modes of chanting). I'm familiar with Shlomo and Neshoma Carlebach, but how does they play into this?

So my safe little definition is shot. And I don't have a better one yet. But I'm working on it and will report on my progress. I'm hoping the folks from Hava Nashira will get a chuckle over my befuddlement and set me straight.

Related posts: Guitar in Synagogue?; Music, Setting, and Grass Clippings, Hava Nashira & Hot Shabbat - Reform / 'Contemporary Jewish Music' resources

Feeling Bookish

It's about 6am North Coast time, and once I'm done writing this post I'll be heading upstairs to wake up my gang. Today's my elder girl's first day of Kindergarten. We're all so wound up about it that I'm amazed that any of us got any sleep last night. This will probably be the one day all year that I can get her out of bed without a fuss.

So, it was with thoughts of schooling and starting new projects that I hit the internet last night looking to build up my Jewish Music reading list. While bumping around I found two great resources. The first resource is the Jewish Music Web Center's Booklist. While it doesn't try to be exhaustive, it has a great list of books that cover a wide range of Jewish music topics ranging from 'The Music of Israel: From the Biblical Era to Modern Times' to 'Rock 'n Roll Jews' to 'Ernest Bloch, Voice in the Wilderness: A Biographical Study' Some look pretty academic and some pretty popular press (sadly, I'm scientist by training and get more excited by the academic texts. sheesh.) The Booklist is just that, it doesn't link to sources for the books, but many can be found through your favorite local and online new and used booksellers. Prompted by the list, and after reading a great discussion on Velvateen Rabbi, I picked up a remaindered copy of Jeffery Summit's "The Lords Song in a Strange Land" for under $5 from Half.Com. I also nabbed Nahma Sandrow's "Vagabond Stars" (about Yiddish Theater) and Jeffery Melnik's "A Right to Sing the Blues".

The second resource I found is the website for Broder's Rare and Used Books in Waterbury Connecticut. I've said before that I was an English major in college. Small, antiquarian booksellers are about my favorite people in the world. No one, just no one, loves books more than these folks. No can ferret out stranger or more wonderful texts than these folks. And Broder's list has over 100 Jewish music books including from "10 CANCIONES PARA PIANO CANTO, VIOLIN Y JALIL -10 LIDER FAR PANO, GEZANG, FIDL UN KHALIL - YIDDISH AND SPANISH. Wajner, Leon. New, Estudios d.e.m.o.s., 1959", both volumes of Velvel Pasternak's "SONGS OF THE CHASSIDIM" and "MUSIC IN ANCIENT ISRAEL/PALESTINE: ARCHAEOLOGICAL, WRITTEN, AND COMPARATIVE SOURCES. Braun, Joachim, Douglas, Stott W." And the prices are very reasonable. I picked up a copy of "MODERN JEWS AND THEIR MUSICAL AGENDAS. VOL. IX OF STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY. Mendelsohn, Ezra (editor) Collection of essays dealing with the music and Jews and the role of music in Jewish assimilation into modern European society, Israeli identity, a separate Sephardic identity, to further Zionism and other essays" for under $20.

This should keep me in happy reading land for a while.

PayPlay - Download Jewish Music. Lots of it.

So, I think I'm in trouble. I already download a lot of Jewish music from eMusic. But that's a subscription service and I usually run out of my allotted tracks about mid-month. Which is fine, I tell myself. I've got to set myself some limits, right?

Right?

Payplay.fm doesn't think so. They're an indie music download site with (today) 351 albums labeled 'Judaica.' Many are one's I'm familiar with or have downloaded through eMusic. But there looks to be a lot of additional albums. Payplay got it's start selling indie music in the fairly useless Windows Media (WMA) format, but has just switched to selling iPod friendly MP3 files for .88 cents. They also promise a (relatively) high payment to the artists (compared to iTunes).

Now I know what to do after my monthly eMusic binge. I'll just have to keep my self to one album a month. Or two. sigh.

Here are some PayPlay 'Judaica' albums that caught my eye:

Sista Warrior and the Shakespear's "Stop the Suicied Bomber's" "Award winner Sista Warrior, presents the pristine fusion of the sounds of Deep Roots Reggae and Jewish Ghetto-Life lyrics. This mystical music started a totally original genre in the '80s. The beat is alluringly danceable, the words profoundly spiritual."

Judy Caplan Ginsburg's "Amazing Songs for Amazing Jewish Kids" "Amazing Songs For Amazing Jewish Kids by multi-award winning singer/songwriter, Judy Caplan Ginsburgh, features 16 terrific songs, mostly in English, that teach basic Hebrew, holidays and values. Featured are a number of sought-after songs that have never been released previously on a professional recording -- Dean Friedman's "In My Sukkah", Josh Miller's "Tree Song", Steve Dropkin's "Lulav Shake" and Judy's new "Shema Lullaby" to name a few."

Shlock Rock's "Jewish Pride" "Lenny Solomon is the head of a Jewish Rock and Roll Band called Shlock Rock. He has released 25 CD's. Ten original, 10 parody and 5 Children's. The mission of Shlock Rock is to spread Jewish Pride, Identity and Awareness to the World Jewish Community. In 1993 Shlock Rock became the only Jewish Rock Group to get a question in the Trivial Pursuit game. Jewish Pride is the first original album of the ten that Lenny Solomon and Shlock Rock has recorded."

Vocolot's 'Behold' "Vocolot brings a joyous fusion of folk, jazz and cantorial vocal traditions into the contemporary a cappella world. They sing in English, Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, and Arabic, blending lush harmonies, soaring melodies and global percussion in original works and new renderings of ancient songs and texts. Vocolot's music, rooted in universal heart, social conscience and Jewish soul, communicates a powerful vision of world peace and reconciliation."

Hat tip to BoingBoing for the pointer to Payplay.fm

Jewish eMusic

I know I've mentioned this before, but my biggest source of Jewish music these days is eMusic. eMusic is an online music store that is subscription based and caters to the independent music crowd. I got turned on to getting Jewish music from eMusic by the SomethingJewish Show's Caroline Westbrook. That's where she gets a lot the music for SJ show.

It really is a gold mine. They have an amazing range of albums from old Folkways field recordings to contemporary klezmer, cantorial, classical and jazz. They have all the Tzadik Radical Jewish Culture recordings and the Reboot Stereophonic recordings. The main thing they don't have is much of the contemporary Chassidic music scene. Not sure why.

I've got a monthly subscription good for downloading about 7 albums for a very reasonable price and am pretty sad when I use them up. Some of the recent recording's I've picked up include Frank London's "Scientist At Work," J.U.F.'s "Gogol Bordello vs. Tamir Muskat", David Chevan's "Days of Awe", and Leonard Bernstein's "Symphony No 1 / Concerto for Orchestra." Just to name a few.

I don't normally shill for companies, but there a small handful that are really useful. I think eMusic is one of them. I'm absolutely hooked on the service. Here's a banner with their current deal: