Re: Quartertones in cantorial music

[dchevan <dchevan...>]

My two cents on the subject comes strictly from transcribing Yossele
Rosenblatt pieces.  As I was transcribing the various pieces I began to find
certain places and patterns in Rosenblatt's choices as to when he would be
in tempered pitch and when he used quarter-tones.  I don't even know if he
was aware that he was making quarter-tones as much as creating certain
emphases that were attached as much to the text as anything else.  I get the
sense that he was very aware that the "out-of-pitch" notes created a certain
drama that the congregation would have felt as supplication.  In contrast
there are sections, especially when he is singing more in the Yiddish
song/freilakh style (strident and martial at times) that he is right on the
money and everything is in more or less tempered pitch.  Listen to his Al
Kheyt recording and you'll hear what I mean.  When we recorded that piece
and several others for my  "Days of Awe" album Frank London brought in a
quarter tone trumpet.   Listen to Frank play Hineni on the album and you'll
get a good understanding of what microtones can do on a Kazzones recording.

Anyway, if I was a better musicologist I'd write a paper on this subject
because it is a fairly worthwhile and interesting topic, but on the other
hand too many trees have already been killed in the name of musicology ; - )

dc


----- Original Message -----
From: "r l reid" <ro (at) panix(dot)com>; "r l reid" <ro (at) panix(dot)com>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 1:54 PM
Subject: Re: Quartertones in cantorial music


> Sam Weiss wrote:
> > I have had conversations with people (some on this list) who disagree
with
> > me, and tend to "formalize" these tonal effects, and perhaps they might
> > want to join this discussion.
>
> Or, on my side of the aisle, to not formalize them.  I'm not all that
> knowledgable, in any formal manner anyway, with chazones.  I am fairly
> knowledgable in so-called microtonal music, having composed extensively
> in it in a past life.
>
> I'm one of those cranks who is fairly well convinced that this
rigidization
> of pitch, originally inflicted by the development of the 7-white-5-black
> interface, was brought to an absurd point as technology for achieving
> true equal temperament came about in the early 20th century.  (Before then
> it had been a goal but probably wasn't achieved).  Having done such
intense
> violence in destroying the slightly different intervals between adjacent
> notes in a 12-to-the-octave view of the world, we gained the ability
> to play jazz but lost so much else.
>
> Like I say, I'm no degreed cantor or musicologist, but I do know what I
hear -
> good cantors have so-called "microtones" all over the place.  Because what
> they do is they sing.  And they have these wonderful instruments without
> limitations of fixed pitches - or almost fixed pitches that can be bent
> a little one way or the other.
>
> No, they can sing all 20 zillion notes in between the so-called semitone.
> They can sing a pure major third (try THAT on a piano!), or any of a
number
> of pure minor thirds, or can use some of the other, more abiguous thirds
> which are really useful.
>
> However, we poor listeners having had our senses dulled by a lifetime
> of music played on pianos and guitars and - horrors - singers who train
> using a piano! - hear some of this and decide that the idiot hazzan is
> out of tune, as she or he lays thier heart and soul open.  Well, at least
> now we have something to talk about during the Torah reading!
>
> It's one good reason to continue the ban on instrumental
> music on Shabbat and Yom Tov - it lets the voice go free, without being
> hemmed in by the prison of 12-to-the-8ve EQT.
>
> Not that I feel strongly about this....
>
> roger reid
>
>
> --
> r l reid ro (at) rreid(dot)net
>
>

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