Sunday, September 19, 2010

y"k round-up

the NF wishes the greater gonging community a שנה טובה and hopes that everyone had an easy fast.

And the golden Shtenders go to:

1. To Dr D., physician. Dr. D davened musaf yesterday (after leading kol nidrei the night before) at the neighborhood vatikin minyan and was superb.
2. To Dr. Blue. The NF got to shul for mincha, got his talit and Depends on and waited for the yodeler to make the kahal crap itself. But alas, the yodeler got to shul and told the gabbaim that he did not want to daven. The gabbaim had to scramble to find a replacement and asked Dr. Blue  to step-in. With no prior preparation Dr. Blue had perfect nusach, was fast and finished 7 minutes ahead of schedule.
3. To the Big Gong for his outstanding  16 minute psukei dezimra at the vatikin minyan and for refraining from telling me any rude jokes during the avoda (after numerous mikveh jokes erev y"k). After shul yesterday morning, the Big Gong went over to Dr D and said: "of you, me and the NF (who davened a 2-hour shacharit), who do you think was best?" you were, Big Gong, you were.
4. To the gonging gabbai --- for all his hard work over the chagim even if some of his baal tefilla selections were absolute bombs. Shkoychi.


As mentioned above, the NF led shacharit  at the vatikin minyan (start time: 4:50 AM) which was a bit tricky. After getting through hamelech, I realized I had 7 minutes to get from barechu to גאל ישראל to hit נץ החמה. I turned on my special NF turbo engines and we hit it right on time. The NF did have to use a very fast melody for אל האדון, specifically the Carelbach לשנה הבאה בירושלים, which had the surprising effect of getting people singing at 5:15 AM.

The NF's melody selection:
אתה הוא אלהינו -- Naa'r Hayiti (For the record Yoni R, who continues to remind me that he is the only person on the blog without a cool pseudoname, told me that it was a kitsch selection) ---- with three part harmony from YS and Dr D.
היום יכתב- Mochel Avonot
אמרו לאלוהים - a large assortment of melodys including yachad, shomrim mafkidim, boi v'shalom (Carlebach) etc.
מעשה אלהינו  - the London Yom Shabaton. I thought a lot about Marc Weinberg z"l while we we made our way through this piyut....we always sang this melody when our families had shabbat lunch together.
על ישראל - v'haviotim
האדרת והאמונה - the Seudah shlishit melody
קדושה -- from kvodo through shma yisrael, the Breslov Lecha Dodi.
שמע קולינו -- from Al tashlichenu etc I used the high part from lev tahor....
אנו עמך-- tzamah nafshi
אבינו מלכינו זכר רחמך -- prok yat anach
ואני תפילתי -- the NF "borrowed" YS's idea of using Baruch El Elyon...Luckily Mrs. NF wasn't there to scream at both of us for using too many shabbat melodies in the middle of Yamim Noraim davening.

for the record the NF really missed hearing YS's neilah....As noted in a prior post, the gabbaim didn't want anyone to have a chazaka so YS didn't lead neilah this year --- in my opinion a mistake. The person who led neilah used the geshem/tal meoldy for kaddish (gong) and the regular yamim noraim melody for avot (double gong). At least he sang mochel avonot a few time and he finished on time!

Time to go practice waving various garden specimens around.

-- the (very hoarse) NF

4 comments:

ADDeRabbi said...

By the "London Yom Shabaton", do you mean the old, old chassidishe niggun known as "Adam Harishon's Niggun", that relatively recently was set to Yom Shabaton?
Here's a sampler:
mms://media.iims.net/jewishjukebox/2006/17290.wma
It's a classic Yamim Nora'im tune - I heard it several times over the course of the High Holidays (I used it for "Atiti Le-chonenakh" in Shacharit RH2)
And the virtual cantor uses it for Tal/Geshem (track 259): http://www.virtualcantor.com/geshemtal.htm
Here's another rendition where it's called the "Besht's Niggun": http://www.torahvideo.com/torahvid.php (audio-->Ba'al Shem Nigun)

In short, it's one of the oldest nigguning that's still regularly used, with all due respect to the Brits.
Of course, if you're talking about a different tune, then I take it all back.

the NF said...

you are correct that some brits (including Dr. D) use the Besht's niggun for yom shabaton but that wasn't the melody I was talking about....
The melody I was talking about was composed by Yigal Calek from the London Boys choir. I'll have to find a link for it later.

-- the NF

ADDeRabbi said...

Please do.
I assumed it was Nigun Ha-Besht because Dr. D. used ot for "Ya'aleh Tachanuneinu" at Ma'ariv.

Placido Dubois said...

PD had the same Ne'ilah experience as the NF. Back in the day, PD used to sit in front of a trained-hazzan-turned-lawyer. He told me that the typical test (he used to say "probe," always pronounced "pro-beh") for a hazzan was to sing the 0.5 kaddish for Geshem/tal followed by the 0.5 kaddish for Ne'ilah. Only a qualified hazzan can keep the two separate.
At the risk of causing family strife in the NF household, PD thinks that Shabbat tunes were appropriate this year, since YK fell on Shabbat. They were a nice supplement to the mandatory liturgical modifications.