RE: Identity in Klezmer

[Yoel Epstein <yoel...>]

These aren't stupid questions, they're good questions.  Just be prepared to 
spend a couple of dozen years looking for the answer.

You can ask the first question not just about Klezmer music, but about *any* 
music.  Leos Janacek believed that all music was an imitation of speech.  He 
used to follow people around listening to them talk, and writing down the notes 
in a little notepad.  Much of his music - take the "Intimate Letters" quartet 
as an example - sounds much like people talking, arguing, making love with 
panting, frenetic passion.  

Since Janacek, there has been a great deal of thought and research about the 
relationship of music to speech.  A good place to start looking is in "Music 
and the Mind" by Anthony Storr and "The Musical Mind" by John Sloboda.

Once you get the general theory down, you can try to apply it to Klezmer.  I 
would be interested in hearing what you come up with.

As for the second question, I would like to ask it differently:  why is the 
Klezmer revival happening in America and not in other places where there are 
large numbers of Jews?  Israel, for example?

Yoel Epstein
yoel (at) netvision(dot)net(dot)il

----------
From:   Mark Shanteau[SMTP:mjshanteau (at) ucdavis(dot)edu]
Sent:   éåí çîéùé 04 éåðé 1998 01:19
To:     World music from a Jewish slant.
Subject:        Identity in Klezmer

I am a student at the University of California, Davis and I am writing a
paper about klezmer music. I am looking for help with two question. Does
the music mimic language? It sounds like it to me, especially in some the
melodies Andy Statman plays. The second question is a more general cultural
question. How do American Jews view themselves, and how does that reflect
in the music?

Mark

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