RE: Shlomo Carlebach/Giora Feidman

[music <music...>]

Two comments:

1) One piece (or piecele) of this comparison, at least, is more
    valid than perhaps has been pointed out (indeed, it may even
    have been obscured in some responses):  Shlomo Carlebach
    was *not* born into Hassidus, and so I guess could be consid-
    ered to have originally been an "outsider" to that part of the
    Jewish world.  Of course, he immersed himself in it once he
    was exposed to it.

2)  I'm puzzled by this remark of Cantor Sam's:  

> Ironically, the analogy is brought full-circle in the last few years by
> a number of instrumentalists who are being taught to create instant
> Nigunim by tapping into their inner Ba'al Shem Tov.

Hmmm ... I think I'll let the "inner Ba'al Shem Tov" reference pass.
But aside from that, I'm not sure what "instant" niggunim are, as opposed
to ... what?  "Cook one minute" niggunim?  "Cook five minutes"?

Seriously, Hassidim traditionally valued niggunim that came into being
spontaneously, from the heart--as opposed to "composed," written-out
music, which they typically distrusted.  Shlomo's niggunim came to him
that way--as do, presumably, many or most of the niggunim composed
more or less in his style or inspired more or less by his example.  Does
that make such niggunim "instant"?

Some niggunim may take their composers a little more time to become
fully formed ("Cook five minutes [or whatever]?")--and obviously there
were Moditz "operas" and other exceptions--but I'm not sure why that
would matter, or that it would make them necessarily more or less
beautiful or enduring.  It may--or may not--make them more compicated;
but as Pete Seeger liked to quote Woody Guthrie, "Any damn fool can
get complicated.  It takes genius to attain simplicity."

In the liner notes to OPEN THE GATES!, I cite a hazzan who dismissively
refers to "the here-and-now 'spirituality' of guitar-strumming ... prayer 
leaders";
I question there what other kind of spirituality there is, and I'm wondering
whether that comment, or even the quotation to which I was responding,
might not be relevant here.  (I'm not saying, btw, that Sam is being 
dismissive; 
in fact, I'm not sure what his point was.) 

--Robert Cohen, I hope not responding too instantly

  cdbaby.com/openthegates

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