Rss Feed

What’s In A Voice

Hamed Nikpay at a Tangents party, 2006

I grew up listening to European operas, oratorios and lieder.  The classical way of singing, while glorious, eventually lost its attraction on me.  I remember attending a spiritual “workshop” in college.  The man closed his eyes and hummed a few notes.  There was no discernible technique nor did the voice project.  He said, “This is spiritual.  It comes from the depth of suffering.”  And I knew it was the rawness of the human voice that had moved me.

In our house, we receive two to five music CDs a day.  Dore cannot audition them fast enough and many sit in boxes and eventually are forgotten.  He has his favorites and I have mine.  We don’t always agree, and Dore has a much wider taste in music than I do.  But we can always agree on the very best, when the soul comes through the voice and moves us.

Our favorites:  The Senegalese singer and guitarist Baba Maal,  the American born Mexican-Lebanese-Jewish singer Lhasa de Sela, (now deceased), Ravid Kahalani of Yemen Blues and the Iranian singer Hamad Nikpay.

We live in a treasure trove, surrounded by yet to be discovered jewels.  It is the luck of the draw when Dore picks out a CD to listen to.  But that voice, that voice that possesses the power, that calls to us, remains rare.

Photo by Raymond Van Tassel

Share