Re: Klez Kamp 2004, music and Yiddish

[Eric Myrvaagnes <myrvaagnes...>]

Well, here's my account of my very first KlezKamp. I have played flute 
(classical-type) for fifty years, and for the last several years in a 
small, very amateur klezmer band. About three years ago our band got a new 
member who had been to KlezKamp once, and who started educating the rest of 
us. Then about a month or so ago, Frank and Lorin did a two-man concert at 
the Workmen's Circle in Brookline: first half concert (fantastic!) and 
second half a jam for anyone who wanted to join in. AT the end of it, my 
wife (violin) said "Let's go to KlezKamp this year!", and we did.

My day started with a theory/background/history semi-lecture course on 
Klezmer Dissonance by Josh Horowitz, who gave us a many-page textbook of 
musical examples. He discussed and played many examples on his 19th century 
Budowitz "button accordion" (buttons on the right-hand side, where they 
usually have piano-type keyboards), and had us play many on our 
instruments. This mix of doing and talking and listening was a great 
preparation for the rest of the day.

My second morning class was with Modern Repertory with Susan Watts (one 
super trumpeter). She gave us a ton of recently-written klezmer music to 
take home, had us play several as a sample, and then we picked two to work 
up for the Sunday night student concert. By the time we picked them, half 
the week was gone, and we had little time left to try to figure a workable 
blocking for them. After trying a bunch of things, we finally came up with 
a scheme that seemed both exciting and workable. Sunday evening we had a 
disastrous last run through, but at the performance it all came together, 
thanks to Susan and our two fine singers, Miriam and Cathy.

First afternoon class was Adrianne Greenbaum's flute class, which was also 
great. She started about six of us back on day one of playing a flute: 
trying to get a decent embouchure and sound. We moved on to ornamenting a 
nign, and then ornamenting and working up a piece that each of us was 
working on. She also made available the music from her terrific CD 
("Fleytmusik"), as well as a CD of performances by the old klezmer master 
flutists. She is a great teacher and performer.

By midafternoon, my left-brain had stopped operating for the day, which was 
ok, because Frank London's "Funky Side" band was totally right-brained and 
experiencial. Frank=energy, in all forms, and he helped us find the energy 
in doing improvisations and experiments to simple tunes he would paly for 
us. No written music at all. We got to experience the relationships between 
rhythm and harmony and melody as well as the many possibilities of "mixing 
and matching" all sorts of stuff. The semi-improvised thing (it wasn't 
really a piece, even though there was a simple tune embedded in parts of 
it) that we did at the student concert was essentially put together from 
modules we had worked up that very afternoon (rhythm bits, harmony bits, 
chunks of melody from the song: parts A, B, and C, a funky "Intro" we had 
worked up earlier, and riffs for rhythm, fiddles, trombone plus sax, tsimbl 
plus flutes, flutes with clarinets, accordions, and a couple of solo 
riffs). At the concert, we put them together in whatever order Frank 
signalled to us. Nobody, not even Frank, had any idea what order we were 
going to do anything. I don't know what it may have sounded like to an 
audience, but to us in the band it was truly exhilarating.

The people we met were great. And even the food was -- how should I put it 
-- perfectly useful for me, since I am trying to lose weight. It was easy 
to avoid anything fattening, because it didn't have much flavor. The rather 
bland gefilte fish, the veggie soups, the dessert cakes, and even the 
pretty timid horseradish all were pretty indistinguishable. But there was 
plenty of solid nutrition (chicken, brisket, salad bar, etc.)

Any of you who haven't ever done KlezKamp should do so ASAP. It is great. I 
suspecty the Yiddish program is just as great, but I can'e speak to that.

Happy (secular) New Year to all!

Eric Myrvaagnes (flute)

At 01:36 PM 12/31/2003, Jill Friemark wrote:
>Wow!!!  Frank's stuff sounds like it was just about the highlight of 
>Klezkamp!  Good for him - he's got such a great attitude and is such a 
>vibrant, soulful musician, it hardly surprises me.  I envy all of those of 
>you who had the opportunity to be involved with his classes and 
>workshops!  Hope to join you all out there one of these years...
>
> From personal experience, can anyone tell me what the Yiddish curriculum 
> is like at Klezkamp?  Teachers?  Likes or dislikes?  Please email me 
> offlist if you have any input (since it's somewhat off-topic).
>
>I'd love to hear more about all of you musicians' experiences out there 
>this year!  Al? Roger? Jeff and Deborah? Lee? Ari? Anyone else?!?  Give 
>give give!  :)
>
>Take care, happy new year!
>Jill
>


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