RE: In defense of the recorder

[Matt Jaffey <mjaffey2...>]

Dear Reyzl,

Thank you for pointing out that my statements were facile. I do consider
myself to be a _student_ of the klezmer genre, and not an authority -
primarily as a musician, but I also find the historical subject matter
quite interesting.

Because I do not have years of scholarship in this area, as you do, I am
careful not to present historical conclusions of my own to this list. I
know that my historical sources have been, and will continue to be
secondary, but I wasn't aware that they were controversial or naive.
Perhaps, if those individuals chose to participate in this list, they could
represent themselves. I am quite happy to discontinue sharing such ideas
with this list. And maybe doing so would encourage scholars to participate
more. Do you really think so?

However, I have noted that each of the several times I have blundered in my
comments to this list, someone who apparently is knowledgeable on the topic
has shed some light. So, at least from the point of view of my own
education, it has proven to be useful for me to bring things up. The
present interchange actually illustrates this point, and I want to thank
you for bringing up some of the many facets of consideration that are
relevant to the topic. On the other hand, I don't know if reading my email
annoyed you, as your initial tone implied, or if you think it was an
imposition on your time to respond to my statements.

This list has some interesting strengths. One of them is its ability to
bring together such a diversity of people, with different levels of
knowledge and experience, with different interests and tastes, from
different geographical regions, all interested, in some way, in Jewish
music. It certainly has been an eye-opener for me to see how diverse
people's opinions and tastes can be, who identify with this one topic.

One of its weaknesses, though, seems to be the ease with which friendly
people can end up making other people feel bad, perhaps because we don't
see each other's faces - we're just staring at a computer screen.

Another is how threads can take off in a new direction without their
subject headers ever changing. It's amazing that this is still being called
"In Defense of the Recorder". I think my basic points about that topic were
very simple. And I believe that, if you removed all the historical
references that you might object to, and used a little common sense while
reading what I said, you wouldn't find it so objectionable. Beyond that, I
think this topic has been driven into the ground, and I'm done with it.

Thanks again for taking the time,

Matt



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