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RE: My table and a short introduction to Scandinavian jazz

in #music2 years ago

I bought all the records of this trio called, "Little North", some weeks ago and I have listened a lot to it. Really some great young musicians! https://littlenorth.bandcamp.com/album/familiar-places

I think there might easily be some harmonic connection to the Eastern European music like the Klezmer. Scandinavia is placed in the middle between East and West in many regards. This music does lack those wonderful and wild gypsy-scales that really makes it sound Eastern though, in that regard I find the Scandinavian music more bland and diatonic.. (or less spicy is probably a better term). I have heard a lot of live Klezmer music lately as my youngest daughter attends a music school founded by a classical oboist and Klezmer musician who wanted to create a place where poor children can also play. As he is Jewish it has also been a major driving force to involve children from the Muslim communities (which are also in general poor and uneducated compared to the general Dane). We live in this riff-raff quarter and it was possible for our daughter to learn the flute at this place.

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Sounds like a very vibrant place to live!! I don't think I have ever heard an oboist play klezmer - that would be interesting to hear. Bringing all cultures together through music, a portal to other dimensions.

None of the music you posted is bland!! And only Mathissen is diatonic to my ears.

I don't have the music background that you obviously do, but I learned to play the fiddle via klezmer music. Haven't played for twenty years or more. You've made me want to take that thing out of its case.

It is a fine place I live, and only to countryside Danes who only know it through the media is it a dangerous place. And we have the best shawarma in Denmark. The man who made the school base it on his experience with living in Israel and teaching Palestinian children music. That it could be done to meet in music despite the terrible conflict was what made him go home to Denmark and continue the work here. He is what we call a fire soul and what he has created with this school when he came home is really beautiful.

Originally he is a classical musician so it's the oboe instead of the clarinet. I couldn't find something I could for sure identify as klezmer. In the clip below he is playing with a peace orchestra which is one of his projects and the intro cadenza sounds very middle eastern to me (they seem to play a fusion), but when the double bass kicks in it sounds klezmer :)

I love klezmer music it's so lively and danceable, and like all music it is all the background you need. I have had long periods where I didn't play, but with regular intervals I return to music. I have played with my girl to make them practice, and even though they always shout at me it is moments i really cherish.

The intro is a fore-shpiel (sp?), a free meter improv on the melody. Common in klezmer presentations. The entire piece is klezmer through and through, presented with a classical precision. I've been gone too long to tell you what type of tune it is, perhaps a bulghar. It's very very beautiful! I have chills from that one. I don't think I have ever heard that tune, was there a title? Not that it would help me find out anything about it - titles mean pretty much nothing in klezmer. What a wonderful orchestra! How lucky you are to have this man in your family's life! He's very special, a fire soul indeed!

Thank you for providing that. It makes me want to compose a forshpiel for a country tune I am learning. I'm willing to bet almost no one in this town has ever heard klezmer. Oh you have inspired me today!!

You clearly are highly trained musically. What was your original instrument? I'm gonna guess piano. Your understanding of music theory, which far surpasses mine, suggests it.

Your daughter doesn't like to practice? Did you? I never ever practices as a kid. I carried my violin home every single day from school, and never took it out of the case. No one told me to practice. As an adult I tried again with a classical teacher, and again could not get into it. A great klezmer fiddler, Deborah Strauss, crossed my path and klezmer lit up my life with its effusive but simple celebrations of life. Here's an album that your video reminded me of, with Deborah on the fiddle. Classically trained musicians, no slouches any of them, playing klezmer. Lots of forshpiels on this album, and it starts right out with a doyna, a forshpiel that follows prescribed chordal changes.

Ha! Music is the universal language after all. It's a wonderful record. I just had a short listen because I have to go to a 18 years birthday soon. Looking forward to the forspiel (or how it is spelled. I was looking into the scales and it made my head spin: Ukrainian Dorian scale, Phrygian dominant scale, Jewish major! Very much Eastern and middle Eastern inspired. Just shows how some of the things that are remembered as terrible and bloody conflict (in this case Eastern Europe and ottoman calamities) adds up in this wonderful music void of anything negative.

I'll have to look into those scales.

I started with the piano when I was 10, and was just as bad at practising as I was at doing my homework. I can fully understand my daughter when she finds it hard to add a daily hour of practice to her busy life. In high school I bought a saxophone and then I was all into music for three years (and still bad at doing my homework). Had to sell it many years later when economy was tight. I also played a lot of drums as one of my friends left his drum kit in my parents basement. But now I mainly play piano and my shakuhachi flute. As you can see no strings. Oh, now I have to get ready for that birthday!

Those scales are easy. Like mixolidian in western music, U Dorian (called Freygish and might be what is called Jewish major because the root chord is major although the tune sounds minor) is a harmonic minor scale with the 5 as tonic: D Freygish is G harmonic minor (same going down) starting on D. C Mishebarek would be G harmonic minor starting on C. Never used Phrygian in my klezmer travels that I know of.

Bummer about the sax. Get another one!! Hope the party was swell.

A half step there and one and a half there :) Still the way they interact with harmonies make my head spin.

I have considered buying a tenor or soprano saxophone again, but i am also considering a clarinet as that is the favourite instrument of my wife (who is from a tone-deaf family and therefore never got to play any instrument) - and I still have my shakuhachi flute so I do have a blown instrument.

... and the Hungarian minor scale, which is the actual gypsy scale :)