Popular Chassidic Music

[Yoel Epstein <yoel...>]

Has anyone ever done a musicological study of this music? I mean the popular 
music played in Israel on the religious radio stations, like "Arutz 7" and 
"Radio Kol Hai".  This music has the following characteristics:

1.  The words are always from the psalms, the liturgy, or other religious 
sources.

2.  The songs are always in Hebrew, but with a heavy "milre" accent, the accent 
associated with ashkenazic ultra-orthodox Jewry ("s" instead of "t", "oy" 
instead of "o", and so on).

3.  The singers are always men or children, never women.

4.  The style - and this is the most interesting thing - is European Rock, the 
style that you hear on "Eurovision".  Orchestration is usually electric guitars 
and drums, or big band.  Occasionally, the style is Greek, with Bouzuki 
accompaniment and typically Greek rhythms and tunes.  None of the stylistic 
elements normally associated with European Jewish music - klezmer 
instrumentation (violin, clarinet, accordion, and so on), breaking 
ornamentation, melodic minor key, Lydian mode - appear in this music.

What is so striking about this music is its total divorce from the Ashkenazic 
orthodox musical heritage.  I would expect these radio stations to play 
Klezmer, even some Yiddish songs (Yiddish is still spoken in some of the 
communities where these radio stations have listeners).  But never.

Is this a reflection of a cultural change in the Israeli orthodox community?  
Is this some form of denial - similar to the denial of the Israeli secular 
community - of diaspora roots?

I wish I could provide the names of the performers on these radio stations, but 
they never announce the names of the performers.  Perhaps some of the list 
members can shed light on this subject.

-------------------------------------------------------
Yoel Epstein, etses gibbers consultants
POB 8516
Moshav Magshimim 56910
Israel
tel:    972-3-9333316
        972-52-333316
fax:    972-3-9338751
email:  yoel (at) netvision(dot)net(dot)il