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Klezmer music
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Subject: Klezmer music From: Ed Pellow Date: 09 Sep 00 - 04:45 PM Probably an impossible question to answer What are the characteristics of a tune that make you think that it's Klezmer tune rather than an Irish one? Anyone? |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Mike Regenstreif Date: 09 Sep 00 - 04:55 PM Without getting long-winded...It's kind of along the lines of apples and oranges. I've never found that differentiating between Klezmer and Irish musics was at all confusing. Mike Regenstreif |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: WyoWoman Date: 09 Sep 00 - 05:17 PM Clarinets. Oboes. Middle-eastern sound. (in Klezmer) I don't know enough about the actual scales used in each form, but the klezmer seems more half-tonish to me. Anyone who has an actually informed opinion should jump in here. ww |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Bill Hahn//\\ Date: 09 Sep 00 - 07:39 PM Not being that versed in the technical aspects of either myself I can say, however, that if anything Klezmer seems to have more in commong with Bluegrass. Take away the clarine from Klezmer and listen to the similarity. Lyrics and batteries not included. Bill Hahn |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Sorcha Date: 09 Sep 00 - 10:16 PM Klez seems to me to have more of an oom-pa/one man band type sound to it. Sometimes. If you really want to get confused, listen to De Dannan's Klezmer Hornpipes. |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Oversoul Date: 09 Sep 00 - 10:49 PM I wonder about this stuff too, all the time. How about the "celtic knot" motif being so similar to Islamic patterns? We owe it to ourselves to sort it out, or do we? Can we? A small world gets smaller, my culture is a parody of yours, and yours, well, a parody of another! Surely art and music have the stuff that can save us as a species, if we pay attention. Let's Polka! |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Metchosin Date: 10 Sep 00 - 09:28 PM Bill H I would agree with you there and if anyone doubts it, I have an mp3 of an old 78rpm comedy record of mine by Mickey Katz called Yiddish Mule Train that I will gladly send to you. The shift from Klezmer to Bluegrass in the break is seamless. The record is also a hoot too. |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: GUEST,Vincenzo Roma Italia Date: 11 Sep 00 - 08:32 AM I'm not sure to understand the answer, but if you are intersting to have some information about the differences between irish and klezmer music is possible that I can help you. Usually in irish, and more of west european music we use the first position in fiddle and other instrument. The tunes are composed by some art A, B, C and so on, but there isn't imporvvisation. The rythm are simple in 2, 4, 6. In irish music exsist some "effect" like roll, cran, grace notes. In klezmer music you can play in different position, sometimes very difficult, in every tunes you can have a part for improvvisation. Some rythm, especially for the balcan origin are composed (7/8) and where are other effect. There are many other and is not possible write so, but I think the most important differences about this two kind of music is the spirit given by the different culture. I don't know if is all true because this is my research. Ciao Vincenzo
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Mike Regenstreif Date: 11 Sep 00 - 10:08 AM If anything, it's Klezmer music and cowboy music that should be confused. On Friday night at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival, Tom Russell was performing "Navajo Rug," a song that he co-wrote with Ian Tyson. Tom said that Ian taught him to use the phrase "ay yi yi" in cowboy songs. On Saturday night, the great Klezmer duo Deborah Strauss & Jeff Warschauer were singing something that had that phrase. They commented that "ay yi yi" is the most common phrase in Yiddish songs. Mike Regenstreif |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Jacob B Date: 12 Sep 00 - 12:02 AM I can't claim to know much about klezmer modes - I wouldn't know a Misheberach melody from a Freygish - but I have learned that there are quite a number of different kinds of klezmer tunes, each with its distinctive modes Jacob |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: GUEST,murray@mpce.mq.edu.au Date: 12 Sep 00 - 02:36 AM That ay yi yi has such a wide spectrum of meanings that it is no surprise to hear it in a lot of songs. You used to hear it a lot in the spoken language. There is an old saying: "To have money is not necessarily ay yi yi; but not to have it is oi oi oi." Murray |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: WyoWoman Date: 12 Sep 00 - 02:32 PM Thanks Vincenzo -- haven't seen you here before. Welcome. And Davidcoje, I wouldn't say the music is a parody of anything in particular -- although sometimes music does parody other music. I'd say it's more a cross-pollination, and sometimes by the same historical influences. I will see if I can find an article I used to have about the influences on klezmer, but I do know that Middle Eastern music comes into the story at some point. I have no idea if there are such influences at work in celtic music. Does anyone else out there? Interesting thread. Thanks! ww |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: M.Ted Date: 12 Sep 00 - 04:32 PM I am not sure if we are answering the right question here--is it the actual music that we are trying to distinguish, such as an Irish Band Playing, as opposed to a Klezmer Band playing, or are we trying to figure out how to tell if a tune, which I take as a melody, is an Irish one or a Klezmer one? The first question is a relatively easy one to answer-- since Klezmer music tends to be polyrhythmic and Irish Music tends not to be. This simply means that there is an strong underlying beat, but that there is also at least one other beat that plays "against" it.(When one voice is playing, the other beat is implied). Also, the element of improvisation(as is pointed out above by Vincenzo), keeping in mind that the improvised voice works off of a counter rhythm, as you might hear in Jazz. It is no coincidence that many Jazz greats, paricularly composers, came from Jewish musical traditions--Klezmer clarinet and Jaxx clarinet styles are fundamentally related--("And the Angels Sing" is actually a Klezmer tune, and one very famous recording of it jumps from Jazz to Klezmer and back). The basic Klezmer beat (dumDa-dum-dum-daadum) has always seemed to me to be essentially a quick version of the Arabic Rhumba, though the melodies and improvisation often seem to be directly based on turkish classical music. The Klezmer band seems to be based on a version of the Fazil or turkish classical ensemble (which is, functionally, much more like a western jaxx ensemble than like a western classical ensemble), and the traditional Klezmorim often included a Tsimbaly, which was a Santour, or hammered dulcimer. However, when we get down to tunes, the distinctions are harder to make. There are certain melodies that seem to pop up in all kinds of music, and if you listen much to either Irish or Klezmer music, you will know that the musicians have no hesitation about taking melodies from other genres and adapting them--the results can be beautiful or hysterical-- |
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Wincing Devil Date: 13 Sep 00 - 03:32 PM Simple: If the lyrics are Yiddish, it's KlezmerSorry, couldn't resist!
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: Frankham Date: 14 Sep 00 - 03:05 PM The rhythmic emphasis in notably different. The Klez seems to emphasize a heavy downbeat on one. The Irish on two. The modal differences are pronounced. Variations of the Hungarian or Phrygian near east modes are rarely found in Irish music which emphasizes Dorian, Aolian and Myxolydian modes. Minor sixth chords are used in Klez and rarely in Irish. Also, in Klez, occasional minor seventh flat fives. Klez like Irish was popular to a degree in the twenties in New York. Many Klez musicians and their offspring went into the popular swing bands of the early thirties. People like Manny Klein, Ziggy Elman and others could play Klez very well. Mickey Katz was to take the style into the popular arena. As a result, there is an element of jazz stylings in later Klez music not found in the shtetls. A notable diffence is in the phrasing. Irish lilt tends to have longer phrases with less prounounced rhythmic accents. Klez lines are more "broken up" with heavier two-four patterns. In this, it's similar to early dixie or trad New Orleans jazz. The ornaments used for Irish are different than Klez as well. The use of the so-called "dreydl" is not used in Irish music. Some of the rolls played by pipers. fiddlers and flute players are different than those used in Klez. The interesting thing for me though is that there are similarities. The "doine" style is reminiscent of the "keening" style of Irish "Sean nos". The convention of pre-determined musical ornaments in a melody itself is a similarity not found in many other ethnic musics. These ornaments have been isolated and catalogued in the study of both of these musics. Frank
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Subject: RE: Klezmer music From: M.Ted Date: 14 Sep 00 - 05:36 PM What do you mean by "Hungarian and Phrygian near east modes"? There are definitely melodies with Phrygian melodies in the Irish songbag--as to Hungarian, Hungarian folk melodies have a pentatonic flavor, and, when you shift the pulse, sound very irish indeed. In fact, the ornaments, as you mention, are quite similar. |
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