Ruach and singing

[Rachel Gurevitz <rgurevit...>]

Dear All,

Not sure what the answers are, but a couple more anecdotes which might provide
a few ideas if you're trying new things.

I can vouch for Jess' suggestion about getting the kids (especially older ones)
to write their own stuff.  I've always taught 10-12 years olds at Religion
School and been a bit doubtful about the potential for singing with that age
group.  But the class I've had for the last 2 years has really proved me wrong.

The best times have been when they've had to write something.  Usually they end
up using a pop tune that they already know.  The last one we did was after l
learning about Miriam for a `Heroes and Heroines' project.  We re-wrote the song
she sung to celebrate/persuade people to cross the sea.  We had the theme tune
from Friends, Spice Girls Wannabe and a dance track tune, and the lyrics were
brilliant (maybe I'll get round to sending them out on this list).  The kids had
such a good time that they wanted to carry on singing.  So we did Debbie's
Miriam's song.  By the time we got to our Hebrew lesson, another opportunity
arose.  We were revising letters that some of the slower kids have problems
with and one said, `I wish I knew them all in order'.  I asked if they'd
ever been taught the Aleph Bet song, and they hadn't.  You'd think maybe they'd
see it as a bit childish, but they were in such a good singing mood that it
didn't matter - they loved it.  And 3 weeks later they still remembered their 
Aleph Bet too!

I think that sometimes you really have to try to plug in to what's hip for kids
now in music and, once they rediscover that they actually enjoy singing, you can
take them to the places you want more easily.  That seems to be the moral of the
example above, and it's worked for me once or twice in the past too.

Regarding Jewish music more generally, I think the Indian/Asian cultural music
scene is an interesting comparison - I don't know how familiar that is to
the USA.  Loads of kids listen to traditional Indian film music, often re-mixed
in long dance tracks.  Girls love making up dances and singing along.  Boys and
girls are really into Bhangra which is a kind of Indian Rap, and we have 
nightclubs in London dedicated to their music.  It's much more of a cultural 
thing than
a religious thing.  Within Judaism, I think that relgious music, service music
almost inevitably won't be hip for most teenagers, but there is a huge gap in
the market for quality cultural music (but don't any of you get big ideas
too quick - my brother is producing the next biggest international Jewish hit
to follow the Klezmatics success!)

Overall I'm not one for mourning over the lack of young teenage interest
in folk music.  I don't want to sound overly critical, 'cos I love the stuff, 
but the music of today is not better or worse, it's just different.  Music is a
complex thing, and it often reflects things about our culture and society in
ways that we can't fight by asking why kids don't like folk tunes.  Marketing
is a huge aspect of large scale successful music today - we might not like it,
but it's a fact.  We can offer what we've got, and we have a great deal to
offer many people, but we also need to keep our eyes open and encourage the
next generation of music makers, who will take the music wherever they want
it to go.

Regards to all,

Rachel Gurevitz