RE: Shlomo Carlebach/Giora Feidman

[Sam Weiss <SamWeiss...>]

At 01:09 PM 12/2/03, music (at) sterlingmp(dot)org wrote:
>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.

No, please pay attention to that reference, because it's the link to 
Feidman's pseudo-definition which Heiko Lehmann quotes:
"klezmer is a matter of intention -- which he called 'inner voice' or 
'energy'  -- while playing."

>But aside from that, I'm not sure what "instant" niggunim are...
>...Hassidim traditionally valued niggunim that came into being
>spontaneously, from the heart--as opposed to "composed," written-out
>music, which they typically distrusted...

Of course: Someone who is immersed in a language, a tradition, an artform, 
etc. can create a meaningful expression in that form without 
preparation.  Someone who is not, has to be pretty lucky to pull that 
off.  I think even Woody Guthrie would go along with that.

>...I'm not saying, btw, that Sam is being dismissive; in fact, I'm not 
>sure what his point was...

My point was that there is something very wrong with bypassing the teaching 
of a lot of repertoire specific to a style and expecting a student to be 
"instantly" creative in that style.  In another age and time such a teacher 
might have been called a charlatan. Nowadays this is not a valid 
indictment, because it is only an example of the fact that in many fields 
of endeavor our society values "empowerment" at least as much as it does 
"achievement."  In my area of endeavor, for example, there are hundreds of 
professional cantors and rabbis who decided to pursue their career within a 
year or so of taking an interest in the rudiments of Judaism, with the 
result that congregations are being led by well-meaning sincere adults who 
know less about Judaism than a typical ten-year old Jewish child once knew 
(or knows now, in certain locales).  This is not necessarily a bad thing as 
long as the needs of the congregation are being met, and I'm not being 
dismissive of these clergy -- just as I was not being dismissive in my 
original remarks.



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


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