Reply To: A cappella concert

(Sorry about the paragraph formatting – I wrote this in Notepad.)

Mod42:

Read through the Rambam, Shulchan Aruch, etc.

Just a little more specific, if you wouldn’t mind. 🙂 Seriously, when people ask for a source, “the Talmud,” etc., is not what they mean.

(The quote I use below was taken from a sefer that deals

specifically with the Three Weeks. I wasn’t trolling when I asked.)

Also, why have concerts been attacked more than the general Jewish music industry?

As for gedolim not speaking out, I’ll answer myself with “gezeira she’ain rov ha’tzibbur yecholin

la’amod bo,” or at least “k’shem she’hu mitzvah lomar devarim she’nishmain…”

RebYidd23:

A concert is less problematic than recorded a capella.

Sam2:

Pashtus is that RebYidd is correct, at least according to the Shevet HaLevi.

I found this interesting.

Rav Wosner (translation mine) [Chelek 8, Siman 127, Se’if Katan 2 ]:

I have already clarified that a tape is a musical instrument, […] and my opinion is that

even if the tape was made with oral song it becomes instrumental music [lit. a musical

instrument].

Presumably we must interpret “tape” [tes-ayin-yud-peh] as “speakers” (medium-specificity

is certainly not intended, and a tape is incapable of independently producing sound).

But then, shouldn’t anything that comes out of speakers ([or off a tape]) be considered

music, seeing as it is being produced by a musical instrument? One would have to argue

that non-musical sounds can also be produced by instruments, e.g. by banging on a violin,

playing a single extended note with one, or playing ten piano keys at random time intervals.

Still, would this mean that any sound pleasant to the ear, such as some speaking voices,

would be music? One must come up with criteria by which to declare something “music”.