HEY JEWS

Minor keys!

lol yeah almost everything is in fuckin D minor

How many niggunim are in diatonic keys at all

I'm way outside my comfort zone and learning a lot. none of the stuff is particularly complicated but since I don't read music I'm having to pick my way through things by ear in a lot of cases. there's a "swinging" version of the barechu in 3/4 time that's kinda cool. and at some point apparently I am going to back someone singing "Wade in the Water" (a song I actually already knew!)

Kol Nidrei music is dope, probably the best Jewish music there is.

otm, my synagogue growing up the cantor was (and remains) a truly wonderful soprano, and hearing her chant it is like the profoundest depths of my religion

Avinu malkeinu was my jam as a kid, haunting

^^^this

avinu malkeinu is still haunting! especially when it switches up the melody at the end

I’ve head two versions though and I prefer what seems to be the less common one?

lol yeah almost everything is in fuckin D minor

hinei yom ha D minor

Some years when I can't actually attend a kol nidrei service I just put on the Richard Tucker record. I can't really listen to it any other time, it does sort of feel too holy to just listen to anytime.

I’ve head two versions though and I prefer what seems to be the less common one?

Same, I don't like the other one, this is the one for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvX-dCaAVcg

that's the one my shul does

My dad was our cantor for many years, and a really good one if I may say so, not sure if I've ever mentioned that

Jordan that’s the one I know

Although I remember the last note of the first phrase being the same as the first note (in the first two phrases), I wonder if this is how the cantor sung it when I was a kid?

(also does the melody start on the minor third of the scale? I am a music theory idiot)

We have a few guitarists at our temple, most in simple folk singer mode, but one dude with real chops that is fun to watch. Also, there's the son of the former temple pres who fought cancer and was given barely any time to live, but did, and, confined to a wheelchair and with near-blind with an eye patch, has gotten really good at guitar and sometimes plays at services.

I’ve head two versions though and I prefer what seems to be the less common one?

Same, I don't like the other one, this is the one for me

my temple starts with one version, switches to the version upthread for the last minute or two. it's pretty cool.

that's the only avinu malkenu melody I know, not sure what the other one is

tbc I'm playing as part of an ensemble - cellos, clarinet, hand drum, and a chorus - so thankfully there will be no folk singer turns from me.

there was some chatter at the last rehearsal about the composer of a lot of the melodies we do (Carlsberg? something like that) being #metoo'd and whether or not we should do any of his compositions as a result, but I couldn't quite follow the discussion. does this ring a bell with anybody?

here's a melodramatic version of the melody i was thinking of by the most famous jewish singer in the world (or at least the most-famously jewish singer in the world):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YONAP39jVE

Idk anything about it but it must be this guy
https://www.jta.org/2018/01/30/united-states/in-the-metoo-era-these-synagogues-are-banning-shlomo-carlebach-songs

ah
yup that's him

Carlebach is/was a major player in the Jewish music world. If you've been to a Friday night service in the past decade or two that was traditional enough to do most of the full Hebrew songs/prayers but not ultra-orthodox, chances are good at least a melody or two of his was used. His #metoo transgressions were extensive and well known for a long time but surprise surprise most looked the other way. From what I gather he also had a cult leader-like persona -- center of gravity for hippy Jews in the Bay Area in the 60s, then started a moshav in Israel and a whole community of acolytes made aliyah with him and raised their families there. I used to be friendly with a bunch of their kids.

Definitely an interesting twist on the question of cancelling ppl's art, given that the venue is religious... shul is a place where ppl might feel that moral ambivalence/hypocrisy more acutely. otoh worldless melodies don't evoke the skeeviness of their creator the way the characters and plotlines of a Woody Allen movie do.

Also Hey Jews! I'm mostly a lurker on ilx but never saw this thread before.

I belong to a Jewish liturgical music group on fb whose only rule is no Carlebach

Mordy I think my wife signed me up for that group too but I don't really go on facebook anymore. It's a good rule to diversify things even without the metoo stuff

easy fast all

I was kinda weak this year and ended my fast in the late afternoon. My staking the kids to the shul in the afternoon plans were thwarted and just sitting around the house dealing with two small kids on an empty stomach for three more hours didn't seem tenable anymore. It's so much easier to fast when you're in services all day.

Tried a Reconstructionist Service for Kol Nidre. They did Adon Olam to the tune of "This Little Light of Mine". Interesting

x-post -- but yeah fasting in afternoon at home is harder.

“Adon Olam” can be sung to essentially any tune, I fondly recall singing it to the final Jeopardy tune

Hola judíos!

Hi Jews. I've been felled by a nasty virus and have not made it out of the house, much less to services, in days.

(also: Not Actually Jewish, but Yom Kippur is my favorite)

hope you get well soon. chag sameach

well that was exhausting!

by far the most intense part (for me, anyway) was a side-ceremony, a "healing circle", where people shared their personal struggles. Mostly health related, but just a lot of personal stories about sickness, fear of death etc

followed by a communal rendition of the least-Jewish thing in the whole service (but which I really dig playing), "Wade in the Water"

omg what kind of hippie shul are you attending?

A Reconstructionist one that's focused a lot on social justice/tikkun olam sorta stuff. The healing circle thing was an informal side-thing held in between the main Yom Kippur service and the Ne'ila (it was preceded by a yoga/meditation thing). Normally I wouldn't have gone, but the Rabbi needed a guitarist/accompanist.

Yeah my local Reconstructionist congregation is somehow both more and less hippy than the average Reform congregation. It is big on environmental activism but low on acoustic guitars. I like Reconstructionism a lot, am a Kaplan fan, etc., but I admit to eye-rolliness on some of the birkenstock aspects.

quincie convert already! you've done the work

take the magic bath

I def prefer our instrumental and audience-participatory set-up to the organ + cantor routine I grew up with. the cellos bring a bit of classical chamber music to it, the clarinet and guitar bring the klezmer/folk side, and then we have a choir. Plus the Rabbi + percussionist hand drumming which adds a sort of Israeli/north african feel to things. idk I guess that's pretty hippy but I like it.

There's also a couple classically trained vocal soloists, one handled Kol Nidre etc

A friend had a great facebook debate going on his wall about some nu-YK prayer where you congratulate yourself for your good deeds in addition to confessing your sins. It turned out it was created by the founder of "open orthodox" judaism, which was weird because it seemed at least as hippy-dippy and revisionist as anything you find in the reconstructionist movement.

Jewish pluralism is a beautiful and nonlinear thing

...take a sad song, and make it bubbe.

We didn't even have an organ, just a solo acapella cantor (which could be very haunting)

Our Reform temple is pretty reform, with choir, piano, guitar at times, social justice issues at the fore, etc. But last year I went to a bar mitzvah at a Reconstructionist synagogue in Oakland and boy, did it make our temple look stodgy.

There is a lot of singing and dancing