klez/yiddish/voice

[SamWeiss <SamWeiss...>]

At 12:00 PM 5/23/02, itzik gottesman wrote:
>Perhaps the Yiddish equivalent of "it don't mean a thing "... is "You 
>sing/play like a goy, if it aint got that "oy". That sound in my opinion 
>is crucial to Yiddish vocal music, klezmer , synagogual/cantorial and 
>yiddish language. - Itzik Gottesman

But the contrapositive to this rule, to quote the same bard, "...Ain't 
Necessarily So."  I still recall that moment of great existential 
consolation when I discovered that Ukranian folk singers also pepper their 
songs with "oy".

To extend Itzik's comment so that it can be applied to the original query 
regarding the relationship between Klez and Yiddish songs:
I think that since the "Oy" often appears as a pickup note at the beginning 
of a song or verse, perhaps a relationship exists among such patterns in 
the two genres, such that a single-note pickup might represent "Oy...", a 
two-note pickup might represent "Oy-vey...", and a three-note pickup might 
represent "Oy-vey'z mir...".

_____________________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ

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