Ha! Music is the universal language after all. It's a wonderful record. I just had a short listen because I have to go to a 18 years birthday soon. Looking forward to the forspiel (or how it is spelled. I was looking into the scales and it made my head spin: Ukrainian Dorian scale, Phrygian dominant scale, Jewish major! Very much Eastern and middle Eastern inspired. Just shows how some of the things that are remembered as terrible and bloody conflict (in this case Eastern Europe and ottoman calamities) adds up in this wonderful music void of anything negative.
I'll have to look into those scales.
I started with the piano when I was 10, and was just as bad at practising as I was at doing my homework. I can fully understand my daughter when she finds it hard to add a daily hour of practice to her busy life. In high school I bought a saxophone and then I was all into music for three years (and still bad at doing my homework). Had to sell it many years later when economy was tight. I also played a lot of drums as one of my friends left his drum kit in my parents basement. But now I mainly play piano and my shakuhachi flute. As you can see no strings. Oh, now I have to get ready for that birthday!
Those scales are easy. Like mixolidian in western music, U Dorian (called Freygish and might be what is called Jewish major because the root chord is major although the tune sounds minor) is a harmonic minor scale with the 5 as tonic: D Freygish is G harmonic minor (same going down) starting on D. C Mishebarek would be G harmonic minor starting on C. Never used Phrygian in my klezmer travels that I know of.
Bummer about the sax. Get another one!! Hope the party was swell.
A half step there and one and a half there :) Still the way they interact with harmonies make my head spin.
I have considered buying a tenor or soprano saxophone again, but i am also considering a clarinet as that is the favourite instrument of my wife (who is from a tone-deaf family and therefore never got to play any instrument) - and I still have my shakuhachi flute so I do have a blown instrument.
... and the Hungarian minor scale, which is the actual gypsy scale :)