Grace notes (was "goyishe notes")

[Elrosen <Elrosen...>]

> "I never play grace notes like that".
> his brother Willie was trying to suggest to him that he play a particular kind
> of ornament between or on an F# and G (some on this list call it a krekhts).

I would say that this is another confirmation of my theory that the "krekhts" 
is more grace not than "ghost" note. The first time I made this discovery was 
after uncovering a book of Cherniavsky pieces written by Joseph Cherniavsky 
where he notates the krekhts as a grace note. I went back to my Jewish 
Violinists resource tapes and noticed that each krekhts had a distinct tone 
(this applies to most if not all the old violinsts).
This also makes it more likely that the old fiddlers used the third (and 
possibly the second - see Steiner, Ahl) in addition to the fourth finger for 
that type of ornamentation, being that it is closer to a grace note.
>From what I have observed, almost none of the contemporary klezmer 
>violinists/fiddlers use anything other than the fourth, producing a high 
>pitched harmonic.
Is there a reason that is so?

All the best,
Elie

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+