The Importance of Jewish Melodies

Melodies and prayers
By Rabbi Berel Wein
Does it really matter if liturgical music is "authentic"?

On Saturday night I was listening to one of the programs on Israel radio while waiting for some inspiration to write my weekly article on a Jewish topic. The program featured prayers, hymns and melodies sung by a young Sephardic cantor. The young man had a beautiful lyric tenor voice but the melodies that he sang were certainly strange to my Ashkenazic ears. The music was exotic sounding, distinctly Middle Eastern in tone and pitch and in a strange way, very provocative and unsettling. I then wondered whether this music and melodies, put to the words of Psalms and our traditional prayers, was perhaps more authentic than the melodies that I am accustomed to hearing being sung in our synagogue.

Full Article: http://jewishworldreview.com/wein/wein_liturgy.php3