Ecstatic Music Experience

[School Councils UK <Jess...>]

Hi guys,

just returned from a European teacher training seminar that I co-ran and
although I don't normally turn my computer on on Shabbat (its now Friday
night at 11.35) I thought I had to share something of my experience with
you. And I felt that I wanted to break into this music rights discussion as
its getting rather heavy - so quick pause before we turn our legal heads
back on.

Well I returned from Hava Nashira a couple of weeks ago after an extremely
mellow week in Madison with my English co-hort, Rachel. Now Hava Nashira
was good ,right, music mania all day and jamming at night once the faculty
were safely tucked up in bed. But I'm afraid the week I just had almost put
Hava Nashira in the shade (oh no!).

Well those of you who know me will know that I am rather into participative
music and dance and having a good time. I had to tone down slightly because
I had to be mature and responsible but my co-leader was a chap in his late
fifties of Irish origin, a superb jazz pianist and drummer. A chap from
Lithuania, a headmaster who's English verbal communication was signficantly
stilted, when he got on the piano, we were just flowing. Imagine this. 35
teachers from all over Europe (not Jewish) from countries including France,
Belgium, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, the Czeck Republic, Germany,
Scotland, Malta, and more all studying in English all day about pupil
participation and democracy and then:-

day turns into night and there was evening one.

People had a few drinks and we starting singing. First in the pub. I had
taken my guitar which I took out as soon as I got there. Luckily there was
about ten of us so we got a private room. We started singing, and these
people who didn't know each other from Adam (or Eve) were linking arms in
minutes and singing. Derry (my co-leader) has a special skill (only when
inebriated) of playing a glass and making it sound like a trumpet. I
studied him carefully and have myself discovered yet unimagined glass
amplificatory pleasures and skills, creative music making at its most
exciting. Anyway we came back, and started singing at our base but I had an
early night because I was jetlagged from my return flight from the States.
Basically each night these people wanted to stay up dancing and singing and
our three piece band (me on my Guild and song leading, the Lithuanian chap
on the piano and my Irish colleague on drums) got stronger and smoother. On
the second night before much dancing had occurred someone asked me to play
Hava Nagila so of course I obliged. And you know what...from being a rather
mellow group joining in with some singing (we were really only at warm-up
phase) they all became animated and were dancing together and this ancient
Jewish folk song(?) created such dynamic energy and joy that even as I was
playing and singing I was deeply moved and inspired. Did you know that
Klezmer is big in Germany?

Anyway each night got bigger than the last and I forgot about my jetlag
completely. And finding songs that everybody knew proved to be a
significantly easy task, with Beatles of course always being a reliable
fall back (hah Liverpool talent) and Bob Dylan hippy croons providing good
harmonic space.

On the last night, I taught Yesh lanu tayish with the dance, they said to
me "What does it mean" I said "I have a goat and it has a beard" and they
said "Great - lets dance". I had our two Euro bureacrats jumping up and
down and going 'yesh yesh yesh' - what power!. Probably due to the fact
that we had started early (20.45 instead of 22.30)  we ending up going on
to recorded music instead of just making our own. I had two CDs with me.
One was a Maddison purchase Joan Baez, Diamonds and Rust. I'm only just
discovering J.B.(thanks to Jeff K) but I am being deeply moved by her as
was everybody else. But I also had with me Noa's hebrew album, the blue one
"Achinoam nini Gil Dor) and I played Mizmor Lilah, the yemeni-sounding
number and you should have seen these people move. Only one person had
every heard of her, a Jewish woman from Belgium, but everybody loved it,
that really moved me too.

The funny thing was,  last night (Thursday) was the wildest and the
hardcore didn't get to bed until 2.00am and the next morning they had to
sit in front of a bureaucratic 'I'd rather watch paint dry' lecture that
made 1/2 hr seem like two and all these nice sensible headteachers who had
been partying just too hard were fighting to keep their eyes open and at
least a faint look of interest on their faces. At two stages I very nearly
lost the battle with my laughter but I just managed to retain
respectability.

I guess these guys hadn't had a course director like me before but I don't
think they minded.

So my Hava Nashira training stood me in good stead. I realised that I had a
job to do so I needed to just stand up there, find the right songs, and
lead the joy and frivolity. And the eduation? well it certainly was
education for me.

And song chords? Well train your ear. And don't forget the more you play,
the more you will play.

lots and lots of love and many thanks for such music inspiration

B'Shalom


Jess Gold

P.S. All of you who reached the end of this message - award yourself with a
visit to Ricks Web site

http://www.wavenet.com/~rickpoet