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Klezmer 101

by Seth Austen

Hello, and welcome to Klezmer 101. Klezmer is the traditional folk and dance music of 19th century Ashkenazi (eastern European) Jews of the "Pale of Settlement", a region encompassing many small countries that were mostly under Russian rule during that time. The term klezmer wasn't originally used to describe the music, it was instead what the musician was called. Kley zemer translates roughly as "vessel of song". A group of musicians were klezmorim or a kapelye. Their music was played at weddings and other celebrations of Jewish life, and came over to America with the immigrants of the early 20th century. Since arriving in the new world, it has undergone many transformations, both of style and instrumentation. During its most recent revival of the early 1970's, people started calling it klezmer music.

Although much of modern day klezmer music tends to be more oriented around wind and brass instruments, the music of earlier 19th century eastern European Jews was largely string based. Violins, accompanied by tsimbl, an Eastern-European hammered dulcimer, and either cello or bowed double bass, were integral voices of this music. Quieter instruments, such as the mandolin, were sometimes played around the house. Around the 1880s, brass and woodwinds such as flute, clarinet, trumpet or trombone were added to the ensembles.

The first thing you'll notice when listening to klezmer music is that many melodies are using an eastern sounding scale as opposed to the major scale that is so pervasive in western music. One of the most commonly used scales in klezmer is Ahava Raba, or "freygish" as it's commonly called in Yiddish. If you take the harmonic minor scale, and start on the fifth degree of it, this resulting mode is the scale we'll be using for many klezmer tunes. This scale is not only used for klezmer, you can also hear it in various other eastern-European and middle eastern music styles. We'll be playing in D freygish for your first tune, so here's the scale with the open D string as the root note; D, Eb, F#, G, A, Bb, C, D. Play the scale for a bit to acclimate yourself to the sound of this mode before trying the tune.

Now you're ready to try Moshe Emes. Make sure to notice that there are both two flats and one sharp in the key signature of this tune. While this might appear to be an unusual key signature, it best represents the scale that we're playing in. For your first klezmer tune I haven't included any ornamentation, it's best to learn to play the melody before adding any. We'll go into more depth about proper types of ornamentation and rhythmic variation in a subsequent column. For now, a little tremolo on the long held notes and a couple of double stops will work nicely. The fourth section of Moshe Emes is actually a repeat of the second section, however I've used a different fingering on the same passage to show other fingering possibilities. Often a violinist will play an entire melody on a single string, this is a very effective technique and translates well to the mandolin.

I hope you enjoy playing Moshe Emes!

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Seth Austen is a nationally acclaimed acoustic multi-instrumentalist; composing, playing and teaching diverse styles from traditional Appalachian, Celtic and bottleneck blues to eastern European Klezmer, Balkan, Scandinavian, jazz and classical. Seth plays a wide array of stringed instruments including mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, acoustic and slide guitar, fiddle, 5 string banjo and fretted dulcimer.

Seth performs concerts, coffeehouses and festivals nationwide with duo partner Beverly Woods, and is a popular workshop teacher. Seth has recorded 5 solo albums, most recently Metamorphosis and Desert Winds and has produced, engineered and played on over 30 recordings by other acoustic artists, three of which have won Indie Awards from NAIRD. Seth has composed music for PBS documentaries, written guitar and mandolin instruction books for Mel Bay Publications and numerous other musicians have performed and recorded Seth's tunes. In 1981 Seth was a triple winner at The Walnut Valley National Flatpicking Championships, Winfield, KS in fingerstyle guitar, mandolin and fretted dulcimer. Seth is currently putting the finishing touches on upcoming Mel Bay books of klezmer music for mandolin and guitar.

Visit Seth on the web at www.sethausten.com.