[Avodah] The Vilna Gaon and Secular Wisdom

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Feb 07, 2011 at 09:51:04AM -0500, Yitzchak Schaffer wrote:
> I've always wondered how much of "music" would fall under this banner.  

Sorry, I should have combined this with the previous post.

Note the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Music was
seen as applied arithemetic -- the simpler the ratio between two notes,
the more they fit together in the same chord. Although sometimes you want
that tension. Similarly, astronomy was handled as applied geometry.

Anyway, I think we're talking about music theory, which has certain
universal truths whether speaking of a shiras haLeviim, klezmer, a minuet,
jazz or today's top 40.

As for drift... The Maharil taught that the "miSinai" tunes (guzma)
actually had an ancestry tracable back to the Leviim. Not the same
tunes, but the same musical tradition. If we look at the modes of music
generally used in Ashkenazi and Sepharadi music (as well as klezmer),
there are strong parallels.

In Sepharadi music, the underlying idea is maqam, which is not only
the mode (the kind of scale it's in) but also a feel for which motifs
"fit". In klezmer, the nearly parallel idea is called "sheiger".

That the Farsi call Maqam haMayun (the Royal Mode) is what
Sepharadim often simply call Tefillah. It is the same mode
as the most common one in Ashkenazi Music, "Ahavah Rabba",
named for the most-memorable tefillah in that mode. Klezmorim
would also call it Freygish, since it's a modified Phrygian mode
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_dominant_scale>. That's not to
say the maqam and the shteyger are identical; they tend to use different
motifs.

And similarly the other modes generally used in music by various Jewish
qehillos. There is enough in common for me to find common ancestry quite
plausible, whatever influences we picked up since from our host cultures.

More on the subject from a musical / Klezmer angle by Josh Horowitz
<http://www.budowitz.com/+Main_Klezmer_Modes.html>

R' Chazan Sherwood Goffin is on a campaign to keep popular tunes
from overrunning the minhag of miSinai tunes. He therefore has a
discussion on the topic of various modes of music and our customs
about when a chazan uses which from a more nusach / minhag / halachic
perspective (the halakhos of breaking minhag). One example of which is at
<http://www.yutorah.org/togo/roshhashana/articles/Rosh_Hashanah_To-Go_-_5770_Cantor_Goffin.pdf>
or <http://bit.ly/fsVoeb> but is a central theme in a number of his
shiurim on YUTorah.org.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
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