I want to thank Menagerie for cluing me in to the amazing voice I’m sharing today. I admit I’m kind of ashamed that I was not familiar with this man before Menagerie brought him to my attention. . .

Last week, I touched on the idea of rhythm, of heartbeats and clocks. . . the other natural rhythm natural to song is the rhythms of speech. In fact, one can look at singing as elevated speech–energized speech. All languages have natural rhythms created by the words used, pitch indicating anything from meanings, to inflection or emotion. Singing simply adds energy to the already existent music in speech.

So it makes a ton of sense that the oldest running traditions of music are religious, sung prayers handed down from generation to generation, whether hymns to Durga in the East or the Psalms in the Mid-East, or the laments of the North . . .

A couple weeks ago, Menagerie introduced me to the amazing Cantor, Gerson Sirota. His amazing, tragic story can be found here, at the Judaica Sound Archive. He was one of the first Cantors to have his singing recorded, and his sound has withstood the distortions of time.

I chose the following recording because Victrolaman gives a bit of an introduction to the piece . . . and because that wooden horn is simply lovely, and you don’t get to see these machines in this condition that often . . .