Re: klezmer melodic contours 5

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Hankus, 
Yeah, I thought about what he meant by that after I answered his letter.
If he meant the glissando + Root-Fifth-Root ending which puts a lid on
the whole tune, it's not an exclusively American phenomenon. You can
hear it in a lot of dance and wedding music all over the place. Gypsies
use it, Greeks use it, Romanians use it, etc, etc. It's used to put a
stop to a tune anywhere at any time, so I interpret that as being an
all-purpose emergency exit valve. When the badkhn had to move the
ceremony along, he called out the new section, like "Klezmer, shpil a
khupe marsh" or "Er Halt a druzhe geshenk". The musicians had to respond
immediately to this spontaneous change of events. Josh

> Sorry for the time warp in my attention to the list; gig season and all.  I
> loved Josh's answer to the question about the endings, but I think Mr.
> Puwalski's question regarding the "one ending" is actually about the "klezmer
> ending," those ubiquitous three notes.  I often wondered about the origin of
> this.  The American musicians I've asked think of it as somewhat rude signal
> that the meter has run out; more bills in the case, please, or we'll just sit
> here with our arms folded.  Anyone have more info?  --Hankus

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