[HANASHIR:8018] RE: Percussion

[Shira Kline <shirlalala...>]

That sounds awesome and inredible!!!  Mazel Tov for bringing your spirit
to Shabbat.  I wish I could be there!  Is there any chance you make a
recording of it for my New York spirit?
Shira Kline

Fifth Avenue wrote:

> My two cents regarding instrumentations:
>
> For fourteen years, I've been Music Director for a reform congregation
> in a Los Angeles suburb called Valley Outreach Synagogue (originally
> started by Rabbi Richard Schachet, whose posts I've see here sometimes
> - now led by Rabbi Jerry Fisher).
>
> Dick's attitude from the inception of the congregation was "do what
> feels honest and will get people in the seats."  One of the primary
> goals of Valley Outreach was - and continues to be - to attract those
> Jews who, for whatever reasons, had become disenfranchised from their
> Judaism.
>
> I am incredibly fortunate that the congregation has pretty much let me
> have free rein to do anything musically that I've wanted (within
> reason).  Given my original musical background was more Motown than
> Moses, I think I've probably broken a lot of rules out of sheer
> ignorance, but I live with it.
>
> The next instance will be on February 2, when we will hold our annual
> "Shabbat Service With Gospel Music", which we have been doing for ten
> years (long before the screenwriter from "Keep The Faith" got the
> idea).
>
> At this service, myself on piano - along with a dear guitar player
> friend of mine named Peter Hume - and the V.O.S. choir (approximately
> 35 voices) will be joined by the 50-plus voices of the First African
> Methodist Episcopal Unity Church Unity Choir.  As they have in the
> past, I'm sure they'll be bringing in a rhythm section of piano, bass,
> guitar and drums, plus a sax player, as well.  The service usually
> draws in excess of 1,200 people and the liturgical rules are pretty
> simple: their Music Director and I go over the service, and each pick
> tunes and settings appropriate for the readings.  They graciously
> understand that there is no use of "Jesus", but rather that the
> selections remain universal and directly address God.
>
> This service is going to be especially meaningful for me this year,
> because the repertoire is going to also include both choirs doing some
> songs (here comes the shameless plug....) from my new album, "From The
> Heart Of A Jewish Soul").  I'm fifty-two years old, and though I've
> been a studio musician for much of my life, this is the first work
> which has ever caused me to take out a second mortgage and is under my
> name rather than someone else's.
>
> For High Holidays, Cantor Ron Li-Paz and I utilize our choir, plus
> classical guitar, flute and three violins.  We typically draw 1,500+
> attendees, and
> as a result, both for the Gospel Service and High Holidays, the
> congregation is rents a larger sanctuary to accomodate the numbers.
>
> I fully understand that this approach isn't for everyone.  Ron once
> invited an Orthodox friend to a High Holiday service, and when it was
> over, asked the friend's opinion.  The gentleman's gracious response
> was, "....well, it was very nice... I just didn't know that I was
> going to see 'Rosh Hashanah - The Musical'".
>
> Who knows? Maybe he was right.  All I know is that, as I sit up on the
> bimah playing, I see the faces of an awful lot of people who seem
> genuinely involved and appear to really be trying to find some meaning
> in the prayers they're reading and singing.  For you and I as Jewish
> musicians, what more can we ask for?
>
> Personally (as long as this soapbox hasn't given way yet), I don't
> think any approach is any more wrong or right than another.  For me, I
> think that any reasonable instrumentation which: a) makes people feel
> closer to God and their Judaism,  b) is true to the music, and c)
> doesn't take the focus from the worship.. is a good one.  I know there
> are lots of valid arguments pro and con, like questions about when the
> music crosses the line and becomes more about "performance" than about
> inspiring worship.
>
> I have no definitive answer, but speaking only for myself, I think
> there is almost always an element of performance in the presentation
> of liturgical music.  I've heard that a cantor is supposed to, in some
> way, be the congregation's "representative" to sing to God.  However,
> I have yet to see either a great cantor or songleader  who wasn't
> concerned about pitch and phrasing and shading as well... all elements
> of good performance.
>
> Just one more point, and I'll shut up.
>
> For me, and I would be interested to hear the learned opinion of
> others herein -, sometimes, not all the time certainly - but
> definately much of the time -  the musical bottom lines are sincerity
> and accessibility.
>
> As we all know, sometimes the beautiful traditional melodies which we
> grew up with are the ones which bring us to the brink of tears.
> Another time it might be a choir doing a sensitive version of
> Issacson's "Venehehmar".   Other times, maybe it's the whole
> congregation standing up at the end of a service, arms over each
> other's shoulders while a single strumming guitarist leads Friedman's
> "T'fillat Haderech".  For me, sometimes it's my congregation singing
> along with some of my original settings and coming up to me after
> words and telling me that my music has helped bring them closer to God
> for a few minutes.
>
> Bottom line: they were touched, in a Jewish setting.
>
> My little opinion:
>
> Drums? Hell yes (probably not during "Kol Nidre", however).
>
> "Ave Maria?" No... even though it's got a good beat, I just can't
> dance to it.
>
> Jack Bielan
>