Re: Klesmer music and the clarinet

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

Hi Margaret,

In the absence of a teacher who could show you directly, I suggest that the
best thing you can do is get a hold of a Marantz cassette player -- if you're
interested, I can let you know the model number. It is mono only, with one
deck, but the thing that's special about it is that you can slow the playback
down to half speed -- or actually even slower, if you want. With this, you
can hear much better the very important subtleties of what they do to get the
effects, which you hear at regular speed but you can't really figure out
what they're doing. As you're just starting out, I recommend you learn tunes
in this way, totally by ear. It's painfully slow at first, but in the long
run you'll be glad you did. Most people I know who are seriously into playing
klezmer have this or a similar machine. If you plug it into another tape deck,
you can copy the slow tape, put the copy into the Marantz, and slow it down 
even further -- if you still can't figure something out.

I learned to play klezmer violin this way.

And I suggest you go to KlezKamp in December -- you can learn a lot in one
week.
Itzik-Leyb Volokh (Jeffrey Wollock)