[HANASHIR:1717] Re: the words to rise & shine

[Judy Git <hillel...>]

Vis a Vis Barney and the Alef Bet song - I beg to differ on one small point,
Steve.  He DID change it.  1) All the kids on the video did was the chorus -
none of the verses. 2) It appears on the tape jacket as "Hebrew ABCs" and - on
the cover, there is no mention of Debbie having written the song (although this
is corrected in the credits at the end of the tape). 3) - and most annoying of
all - the kids singing the song do not know how to pronounce some of the
letters.  E.G. - did you know there were two Hebrew letters called "Chayt" and
"Tayt?"  Worst of all (in my opinion), did you know that without the dagesh, a
kaf becomes a "chaf" - where the "ch" is pronounced in the way it is in English
- like in the word "chair?"  I agree with Debbie's "rendition" of the alef bet
song at CAJE the year Barney came out with his:  "..Just sing the letters like
Barney, and you'll have to go back to school."

Janet - if you're still interested - it appears on a videotape entitled "Barney
in Concert."

What might be interesting is the manner in which I came across all of this.  It
began in Des Moines international airport in1992 or 1993 when we were seeing my
older daughter off back to college.  A little girl of about five, whose parents
were chatting about having gone to church that Sunday morning, started singing
"Alef, bet, vet...."  I couldn't believe what I was hearing at first, and she
went into "Jingle bells, Batman smells...." so I thought I HAD been hearing
things.  When she went back into the Alef Bet song, I asked her how she knew it
and she said Barney.  Since it was just before my younger daughter's birthday
and we were going to Toys R Us anyway, I looked over all the Barney tapes and
finally found the "Barney in Concert" tape on which, as mentioned above, was
listed "Hebrew ABCs" and no mention of Debbie.  So - gadfly that I am - I called
the 800 number on the back for the "Barney fan club" and told the lady who
answered that this was a song with a copyright, and did they know that?  She
audibly riffled through papers and told me that, yes, they HAD been informed and
were changing the way the song was listed. (That was HOW many years ago?  I've
yet to see a jacket on which the song title was written properly or Debbie given
credit).  Out of curiosity, I bought the tape for a friend's child who was
turning 3 that October and previewed it.  I've already told you what I saw and
heard.

Judy

Janet(dot)PAPE (at) oecd(dot)org wrote:

> I agree with you so much about changing the words to songs.
>
> This year our rabbi produced a new (tri-lingual) High Holy Day prayerbook
> for our congregation.  In the course of inserting the Hebrew prayers, he
> modified them, putting back in slight phrases that had been deleted a
> century or two ago or changing the genders.  This drove me up a wall, as I
> had to be extremelty careful to check every word of every musical setting I
> used to insure that I had added the words in the right place, etc.  It
> really tripped me up several times in the services, especially since he
> wasn't consistent, so some of the Rosh Hashanah prayers didn't match the YK
> ones, meaning I had to pencil in 2 versions - the original, the RH, and YK,
> making illegible music. The year before he stopped me on a high B, the
> highest note of the service -- expressly written that way to add emphasis to
> that part of the Amidah -- to correct me. (How many congregants really
> cared?)
>
> I think the overall original spirit of the prayer and the musical setting
> can get lost in these trifles.  YET, on the other hand, sometimes one word
> or gender ending can add so much meaning! To further confound the
> controversy, there is also the historical argument that one should be
> faithful to the composer and the composer's choice of words.  It gets back
> to whether one feels all folk music (synagogue music? all written music?)
> belongs in the public domain or is it an individual's creation?
>
> P.S.  Did the P. Dinosaur happen to use the Alef Bet on a video?  I'd love
> to know which one!
>
> > I am one of those people who believes that the words should really NEVER
> > be
> > "played with" in our songs at all. Don't misunderstand, parodies or extra
> > verses are fine(if done tastefully and harmlessly) if they don't take away
> > from the original song. I have a BIG problem, for example, with the
> > "Purple
> > Dinosaur" of singing fame because he changes the words to all of his
> > songs(except Debbie's Alef bet,...Did you know he actually sang that?) and
> > that like changing nursury rhymes and the like. I want my kids to know "I
> > Love
> > You" as the song for "This Old Man" ? I don't think so!!! As a teacher I
> > want
> > to teach the way it was written.
> >
> >