Klarinet Archive - Posting 000583.txt from 1996/09

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fredj@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Klezmer
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 09:20:06 -0400

Mark,
Good choice. Giora is a fabulous musician and performer. To
answer your questions, 1) If you mean by "growling" the sound he gets by
HUMMING while blowing, Benny Goodman used to do it all the time and it is
a time-honored Jazz sound. I suspect that Feidman heard jazzers doing it and
liked it and started using it. 2) The "nyuck" sound you describe is
called a "KREKHTS" (a Yiddish word meaning to moan or sob). It is done by
glissing down very quickly while cutting off the air flow by almost
swallowing (closing the throat like you were toaught not to!) 3) Re
tuning: Klezmer is an Eastern-European music. It is not Aarabic and has
more in common with Russian or Romanian music. It is the music of the
Eastern European (Ashkenazic) Jews, not of Middle Easern (Sephardic)
ones. You are very preceptive in hearing a non-tempered scale in arabic
music. In fact, there are many modes there which even use quarter-tones.
Sometimes, their instruments are actually altered to play the funky scale
naturally. More often, they are well-schooled in adjusting their tuning
to the necessary scale by use of fingerings or just lipping notes. Makes
you have more respect for them, doesn't it.

Fred Jacobowitz
Clarinet/Sax Instructor, Peabody Preparatory
Machaya Klezmer Band in the Washington, DC/Baltimore area

On Wed, 25 Sep 1996, Mark Charette wrote:

> Having just bought my first klezmer CD (Giora Feidman, The Magic of the Klezme
r,
> 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-tun
e"
> 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
>