Re: sephardic etc

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Carol,

I'm interested in your comments about Yiddish singers, below. Were you
saying also that most of the YIDDISH singers you learned from sang in
microtonal scales?

Carol (and Judy),
I totally agree with you about easy access to professionally recorded
folk music taking its toll. There is another element to add to that.
Modern western electric instruments are usually programmed or tuned to
play in the tempered system, which
has resulted in 2 tonal systems being played at the same time: the
singer sings makam tuning and the instruments play tempered. Wedding
bands all over the Balkans are like this, in spite of instruments which
allow microtonal programming (a relatively new development). Still, many
instruments, including guitars, e-basses and brass/wind  instruments are
acoustically constructed on the tempered system. This duality has
changed the purity of makamat at a genetic level among the younger
generation of singers. The voices naturally adjust toward the
instruments, so the singers sing in a kind of half-makam, half-tempered
system. Can you comment about that? It's a fact which hits at the core
of the theme of homogenization in the world music mill. Josh
 
> Judith says she is finding fewer singers who still sing in makam. I have
> had the same disappointing experience working with Yiddish singers just in
> the past few years (previously, most of the singers I learned from sang in
> specific microtonal scales.) Easy access to profesionally recorded folk
> music has clearly taken its toll... Carol

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