Klarinet Archive - Posting 000565.txt from 1996/09

From: Mark Charette <charette@-----.COM>
Subj: Klezmer
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 09:16:29 -0400

Having just bought my first klezmer CD (Giora Feidman, The Magic of the Klezmer,
Delos 4005), I have a couple of questions:

1) How does he make a clarinet growl so emphatically? I've never quite heard
anything like that before.
2) Same question on the "nyuck-nyuck-nyuck" lines (alright, so I'm imagining
Larry, Curly, and Moe giving each other noogies).
3) His scale seems pretty "western" (well-tempered). However, in Detroit,
we have an Arab TV station which plays a lot of music videos from the Near
East. The clarinet sections in the bands (always seems to be lots of
clarinets in the bands) do not seem to follow a well-tempered scale. Since
many of the klezmer tunes on the CD are of Israeli composition, I expected
less tempering than Giora puts in. Is Isreali & Yiddish music more tempered
(as a rule) than Arab? Also, how does an Arab band play so well "out-of-tune"
on a western instrument (I know, it's only out of tune to my western ears;
after a short time of listening it's just as in tune as anything else).

Mark Charette
charette@-----.com