און מיר זינגען זיך אַ ליד פֿון אַ לאַנד, אַ וועלט, אַ נײַע
So a couple of weeks ago ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gaudior invited me to a Yiddish sing being held this afternoon at the Somerville Community Growing Center and it turned out to be run by the Boston Workmen's Circle and I knew about half the songs in their packet and had a wonderful time even with the ones I didn't and the upshot is that I kind of accidentally auditioned into their community chorus. Which was not how I was expecting this afternoon to go, but I will very definitely take it. I felt I had a somewhat fragmentary answer when asked where I learned my Yiddish songs: my mother sang some as lullabies to me even though she did not herself know Yiddish and we had Theodore Bikel's records in the house when I was growing up and then I got to college and discovered the Klezmatics and last year skygiants threw Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird at me and in the meantime I found and listened to a lot of different things on my own time and occasionally performed them professionally. I got Partisans of Vilna (1988) from selkie. It's a folk tradition. I interact with those. I have pointed out to Tiny Wittgenstein that they often come in fragments.
Afterward I had very nice dinner and conversation with Gaudior and walked home by way of Gracie's and a cone of cardamom and honey cornbread ice cream. I just got back to the internet.
Look at this kraken.
gaudior invited me to a Yiddish sing being held this afternoon at the Somerville Community Growing Center and it turned out to be run by the Boston Workmen's Circle and I knew about half the songs in their packet and had a wonderful time even with the ones I didn't and the upshot is that I kind of accidentally auditioned into their community chorus. Which was not how I was expecting this afternoon to go, but I will very definitely take it. I felt I had a somewhat fragmentary answer when asked where I learned my Yiddish songs: my mother sang some as lullabies to me even though she did not herself know Yiddish and we had Theodore Bikel's records in the house when I was growing up and then I got to college and discovered the Klezmatics and last year skygiants threw Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird at me and in the meantime I found and listened to a lot of different things on my own time and occasionally performed them professionally. I got Partisans of Vilna (1988) from selkie. It's a folk tradition. I interact with those. I have pointed out to Tiny Wittgenstein that they often come in fragments.Afterward I had very nice dinner and conversation with Gaudior and walked home by way of Gracie's and a cone of cardamom and honey cornbread ice cream. I just got back to the internet.
Look at this kraken.
no subject
On the question of answering how one learned songs: yeah, it's so often fragmentary, isn't it? That's the folk tradition, as you say! Years ago at dance camp, when I was at that point the only twenty-something joining in with the people of my parents' generation singing Stan Rogers and rounds and Green Grow The Rushes and sea shanties at the end-of-session party. One of them asked where I had learned all these, and I could only stare at her and stammer something incoherent -- I don't know? I just learned them? They're just songs I know? My parents and my parents' records and the Fireside Book of Folk Songs and summer camp and filk circles and a good ear for joining in, that's where, but it's hard to cobble that together in the spur of the moment. One learns them as one does, however one does, and adds them to the store of songs that can spill out when something prompts them to come forth, that's all.
At any rate, I am very glad that you have an outlet for singing Yiddish songs on a regular basis, and letting that particular folk tradition stretch its wings in your life some more.
Also, that is a very excellent kraken.
no subject
Thank you! It was completely unexpected and really great!
One of them asked where I had learned all these, and I could only stare at her and stammer something incoherent -- I don't know? I just learned them? They're just songs I know? My parents and my parents' records and the Fireside Book of Folk Songs and summer camp and filk circles and a good ear for joining in, that's where, but it's hard to cobble that together in the spur of the moment.
Right! I used to read Rise Up Singing for fun when I was in elementary school. I still every now and then hear a song for the first time and recognize the lyrics even though I never knew what it sounded like. Do people not just do that?
At any rate, I am very glad that you have an outlet for singing Yiddish songs on a regular basis, and letting that particular folk tradition stretch its wings in your life some more.
Thank you. I'm really looking forward to it.
Also, that is a very excellent kraken.
It was basically the first thing I saw when I got home and looked at the internet. I consider it a continuing omen of the day.