Bards Klezmer Fiddle Tunebook Supplement

This book is required for Lesson III of the Wikiversity course Fiddlers Green: Beyond Violin.

Listening: Commentary to Guide Your Learning
Rear historic archives are primary sources which are available on line. These enable one to both listen and view the techniques used. We will use this incredible technical resource with comments from teachers, students and other knowledgable parties.

100 Gypsies, Live in Istanbul
An incredible solo violin backed with a full orchestra of violins. One of the most amazing clips on the web. 100 Gypsy Violins, Live in Istanbul - Turkey, Yiddishe Mamma filmed by

Style
Dissonance is frequently employed, harmonically, and klezmer uses accidentals quite freely, creating its signature mood tones. Trills (Dreydlakh) are "slower and less dense than the trills used in classical or celtic". Cohen contends that "one form of trill is actually a slow sliding back and forth of the finger – primitive wah-wah" and that often the trills are executed on two strings at once.

A Brief Background on Klezmer
See also Compendium of Fiddle Styles/Klezmer for more in depth treatment of this topic.

Klezmer (Yiddish:Klezmer (Yiddish כליזמר or קלעזמער, pl כליזמר ,כליזמרים, from Hebrew כלי זמר vesssel of song") is a genre of fiddle music rooted in the medieval shtetl (villages) of Eastern Europe where wandering Ashkenazi musicians (Klezmorim) played at bar mitzvahs,weddiongs and holidays (simkhes). ritual of rabbinic Judaism.

Antecedents
Some academic musicology suggests that ancient Semitic traditions preceded and influenced, along with Tanahk hymns, Greek Pythagoran music praxis. (It was a blend of dance tunes, liturgy and meditative chant (nigunim). In Archeomusicology of the Ancient Near East, Richard J. Dumbrill of City University of New York traces evolution of Jewish harp, balags, lyre, lute and aerophone instrumental music. . Following the destruction of the second Temple, all rejoicing and use of musical instruments was banned, with the exception of occasional use of the Rams Horn (Shofar).

Medieval
Traditions blended ikn medieval klezmer include Greek, “Gypsy”, Turkish, Slavic and in the later phase, Jazz. Some modern bands| incorporate " gospel, punk, and Arab, African, and Balkan rhythms"

Repertoire
Klezmer music incorporates ritualistic aspects of Hebrew culture but also incorporates "non-Jewish waltzes, polkas or mazurka". According to Bob Cohen, "the Jewish fiddle style is one form of east European fiddle which, like Gypsy fiddle styles, served to play several repertoires and styles." He laments however the difficulty for music historians in that "by the time of the 'klezmer revival' there were very few Jewish fiddlers left to learn from.

Bulgareasca
“In the Bulgarian Manner” In the early 19th century, Russia took over Moldava from the Ottomans and increased liberality led to migration and contact between Jews and Bulgarians which led to "shoulder out the sher and freylechs styles. The end result was the use of triplets to a new extent in klezmer music.

Klezmer in fusion with other styles
As per the above description, all klezmer is eclectic and thus the term fusion, as used with reference to combinations of disparate genres, may be redundant, but some klezmer musicians combine the specific eclecticism of klezmer with very specific genres such as rock, dub or reggae.

Amsterdam Klezmer Band ft. Shantel - Sadagora Hot Dub