Re: Creating our own trop

[Maxwell St <maxwellst...>]

I am a Cantorial Soloist at the Jewish Reconstructionist Synagogue (near
Chicago).  One year, a musically-creative/restless Bar Mitzvah student
refused to learn trop, claiming it was stale and didn't inspire him.  His
tutor told him it would be fine if he would create his own motifs to match
the trop and sing it strictly as written.  He proceeded to compose his own
new-age-sounding nigunim, one little melody per symbol, and chanted one of
the most arrestingly beautiful parshas I have ever heard.  Alas, this is
not on tape--I asked.  But now that I've heard it done, I can confirm that
a person with a composer's genius in him/her can indeed carry it off.

Lori Lippitz