Re: Abayudaya

[Alex J. Lubet <lubet001...>]

Responding to the message of <4(dot)1(dot)20010429150749(dot)0175d648 (at) 
mail92(dot)pair(dot)com>
from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
> 
> At 01:06 AM 4/29/2001 -0500, you wrote:
> >Responding to the message of <988522276(dot)3aeba7248ed36 (at) 
> >mymail(dot)yorku(dot)ca>
> >from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
> >> 
> >> hi, I`ve had that Abayudaya "Shalom everybody everywhere"cd for a few 
> > years 
> >> now, 
> >> ever since it came out, and have often played excerpts for students. It`s 
> >> definitely a curiosity but - "too wonderful for words"????
> >>
> >To each one's own I guess.  Having been steeped in the ideology of musical 
> >impressiveness for longer than I care to admit (and I performed my African 
> >Shabbat last night with a master drummer from Ghana with whom I've been 
> >working 
> >for almost twenty years, so I have some exposure to virtuosity from that 
> >continent, thank you) and having bought into it for way too long, I think 
> it's 
> >simply lovely and imagine, having spent a weekend with a scholar who knows 
> the 
> >Abayudaya, that they're lovely, too.  I enjoyed the sentiment behind the 
> >lyrics 
> >I understood and got a lot of pleasure from their Luganda-inflected Hebrew 
> and 
> >their way with familiar texts.
> 
> I'm glad that this has sparked some discussion, and that we haven't reached a 
> point where only one way of hearing an album is permitted. To hear two 
> respected ethnomusicologists explain how they hear the same recording 
> differently is a pleasure. The fact that one of you really enjoyed the 
> recording, and the other did not, and that both of you were willing to 
> explain how your ears heard the recording, helps provide a context for 
> listening that the rest of us would not otherwise have had.
> 

I appreciate your efforts at mediation, Ari, although I'm not sure it's 
necessary here.  I understand Judith's position entirely and also enjoy 
virtuosic performance, but I also appreciate congregational singing, zmiros 
around a shabes table, and the sounds of the natural environment.  It took me 
years to transcend all my training to, as Garcia Lorca put it, 'give me back the
ancient voice of a child.'

In the interest of full disclosure, although I've been accused of 
ethnomusicology, am often billed as a guitarist, and hold appointments in 
American and Jewish Studies as well as music, all my degrees and most of my 
professional training are in composition.

Shevua tov,



Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
Adjunct Professor of American and Jewish Studies
University of Minnesota
2106 4th St. S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)

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