Re: Glossary of Klezmer Improvisation Genres

[eliot kahn <elkahn...>]

Thank you, Josh Horowitz for an excellent musical explanation of klezmer
forms. This is certainly a great help for people such as myself who are
very unfamiliar with the diverse forms and styles of "klezmer" music. I've
already printed out a copy for future reference.

Great job!

Eliott Kahn


At 12:09 PM 7/24/99 +0100, you wrote:
>Following the doina postings, I received several mails asking for (even
>further) elaboration on the subject of *what is a doina, etc* so I hope
>you all don't mind yet another lengthy pretentious theoretical
>discussion...Josh Horowitz
>
>Terminology in Klez. music is as inexact as it gets, but I'll try to
>answer your question with what I have available. 
>
>FORM AND MODULATION SCHEMES
>While indeed most of the improvisational forms of Klezmer music have a
>function (in the sense of being used for a specific purpose or
>situation) most have no fixed formal structure or modulation scheme. We
>could probably detect tendencies if we had enough examples of them (i.e.
>forshpils, taxims, Zogakhts, etc), but we don't. Your would need a
>statisic standard of 100 to do this, and we don't have any where near
>this.
>
>The improvisational forms I'm referring to carry these various names:
>
>Forshpil
>Nokhshpil
>Opshpilns
>Stehgreif
>Gedanken
>Improvisatsye
>Kale
>Zogakhts
>Taksim
>
>The genres that DON'T fall into this category are the following
>
>Kale bazetsns (or bavaynens, badekns, etc as you will)
>Khosn bazingns
>Doina
>
>I'll go through an explanation of each of these in their order, using
>the parameters of Function and Form:
>
>FORSHPIL:
>Function: A prelude which comes before something else and is connected
>to it. It sets something up, even another imrovisational form, like the
>doina. 
>Form: Free and usually short. Sets up the key to come and can use a
>motive from the following piece. In a doina you can usually tell the
>forshpil motive, because it doesn't hang around the 5th degree of the
>mode, which the doina usually does in it's opening motive.    
>
>NOKHSHPIL
>Function: Usually to connect a free meter section to a strictly metered
>one, which is why it is often found between the doina and the ensuing
>hora or freylakh. It can also end any slow moving form. We are using 2
>new types of nokhspil learned from Majer Bogdanski to finish off the
>Kale and the Khosn bazingns on our new CD, Wedding Without a Bride (yup,
>that's a plug)
>Form:
>The most typical nokhshpil is the one you find at the end of the Abe
>Schwartz doina (also found in Kurt's book). This descending line is very
>common as a connecting phrase. I have a non-Jewish field recording of a
>doina played by tsimbl and violin from Radoia, Romania, whereby the same
>*nokhspil* is played, but comes soon after the opening motive. I also
>use the motive twice in different modes sandwhiched in the middle of a
>Dobranoc improvisation on the new Wedding CD (another plug). Also, it
>was used in Smyrniac Rembetiko (Last I talked to Marty Schwartz, he
>thought this was because some of the instrumentalists who played
>Rembetiko may have been Jewish) I think it's simply another case of
>pan-Balkan motive sharing, though.
>
>Opshpilns
>Function: The Yiddish term seems to have several meanings, the most
>basic being *Strike up the Band*. The German equivalent is *aufspielen
>(remember the Weill piece, *Johnny spielt auf*?). There is also a 16th
>Century satire by the court composer of Innbruck, Hans Newsidler. In
>poking fun at Jewish dance music, he penned an out-of-tune *Judentanz*
>which is preceded by the inscript: *spilt uf!* probably in reference to
>the Badkhn's call to arms.
>The second is *to play for someone* not unlike a serenade, though the
>only use I have of the term in klezmer music is an *Opshpiln di Kale*
>which is the instrumental portion before the kale bazingns follows (also
>on the new Budowitz CD. Plug 3). It has the function of setting up the
>mood of the badkhones, and focusing those present on the ceremony to
>follow.
>Form: These can constitute complete pieces, though the ones I have are
>fairly short. Probably they didn't modulate because badkhen's were not
>always musical, and most likely needed to be tonally anchored by the
>ensemble.
> 
>STEHGREIF (ger. Literally stand and grab, i.e. improvise)
>GEDANKEN (ger. thoughts)
>IMPROVISATSYE (slav. improvisation)
>
>Function: To please the guests when they asked the musicians to 
>*improvise anything at all, but show us what you like to play*. This was
>the explanation given to me by Jeremiah Hescheles, who led the Giler
>Kapelye in Gliniany Poland in the late 20's and 30's and was a good
>friend of Beyresh Katz. He said, often musicians were asked to show
>their stuff, at which point they improvised anything at all. Since in
>his ensemble they knew each other's playing so well, it was no problem
>to do this, even together. There is no form to such a thing, but one
>could imagine that fooling around with the given forms of other pieces
>(i.e. kale bazetsns, etc) would be typical. 
>
>KALE BAZETSNS
>Function: To instruct and bring to tears the bride.
>Form: comes directly from prayer motives 1:1. The bazetsns almost always
>rotates the following shtaygerim (modes) in D: 
>D mogen ovos (minor) F adonoy molokh (major) and G mogen ovos (minor).
>This modulation is SO COMMON in prayers as well as Hasidic dance
>niggunim, that I would like to propose calling its use in klezmer music
>the *bazetsns modal group* (also to be found on the new Budowitz CD.
>Plug 4)
>
>Zogakhts (or Zogekhts)
>Function: To entertain listeners and please.
>Form: Since there is only one Zogakhts piece so named (Moshe Bick's
>transcription of a Bessarabian wedding, taken from a violinist's
>composition), one can't speak of a genre, though the cantorial
>connection is interesting (coming from Zogn). The piece is
>through-composed and virtuosic. My own zogakhts (new CD. plug 5)
>combines motives of an older bazetsns opshpiln-doina-taxim-dance motives
>in an effort to explore modal modulations and also recapitulate the
>wedding (it's used in the Gute Nakht suite), so I took the title as a
>lead toward using the associative possibilities of klezmer music, as I
>think this is what klezmorim were used to doing when it was still
>considered artful to do it.
>
>TAXIM:
>Function: Probably the same as the Zogakhts. Since there are only 2
>known Jewish examples (78 record of Gegna, violin and an unpublished
>transcription by Beregovski), we again can't make assumptions. Strangely
>both taxims are modally stagnant, using typical motives of the doina.
>This seems to contradict the use of the term in Turko-Arabic countries,
>where the taxim can be very explorative.
>
>DOINA:
>The simplest definition of the JEWISH doina would be to make a
>comparison with the blues as a form. Blues has thousands of different
>forms, including 12 bars, 16 bars, 24 bars, etc. and may not necessarily
>follow the I-IV-I-V-I form though this is it's prototype. Jewish doinas
>never seemed to progress past the 
>*prototype model*, if you look at the diversity of doinas found
>throughout Romania and Moldavia. Though within a smaller range of
>possibilities there is still a lot of diversity between each players'
>personal types in Klezmer music. This prototype, in it's reduced  basic
>form is:
>
>D mishebarakh (minor with #4) - G mogen ovos (minor)- D mishebarakh - G
>adonoy molokh (mixolydian with #4 sometimes) D mishebarakh- E freygish-
>G mogen ovos- D mishebarakh
>
>Please let me know if that helps. Josh Horowitz
>
> 

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