Let’s just say it upfront: this is an excellent resource, especially if you’re new to Jewish songs.
I think my copy was supposed to come with a CD, but it didn’t, and I guess I forgot to follow up on that. I did buy it used, but… On the other hand, from what I remember reading in the Amazon reviews, the CD only offers a partial clip of the song. So they recommended YouTube anyway to get a full version of the song.
I admit, the book looks intimidating. It’s actual sheet music. I could read sheet music…for a flute…in the sixth grade. There’s no way I can sing from it. So the value of this book isn’t in the sheet music for me, at least not at this point in my life.
It’s the words. The lyrics.
And words it has. It includes transliteration, Hebrew text, and an English translation. You couldn’t ask for more. (Of course, always take translations with a grain of salt, especially when poetry is involved.) Depending on the space considerations for each individual song, the words are often spread across two pages. Transliteration is written under the notes on the sheet music, which I find difficult to read but better than nothing. The Hebrew text and translation are in blocks below or to the side. Here is Adon Olam as an example:
I can’t hear words in songs to save my life. I can only sing along with a song AS it is being played, and I will have zero memory of the words at all other times. In fact, I cannot sing Shalom Aleichem unless someone else is singing it. Despite singing it every week for a decade or so, I still only know the words as the song is actually happening. And certainly not the order of the verses! I’m always a fraction of a second behind the group because my ear has to hear it first. And there’s probably song mumbling instead of real words, depending on the song. I think I pull it off well, except now I’ve told you my dirty little Shabbos secret. Whatever the cause, this is a limitation I have to manage as best I can. Music is not my strength. I will probably never be “good” at it, but I can definitely improve and already have with the help of this book and YouTube.
This book helps so much. I have the words right in front of my face, and all the songs are located in one place. I can lead our “davening” in Morning Time with only this one book and YouTube on my phone. So far I’ve found everything I’ve gone looking for. I’m sure there’s something from the davening that isn’t there (maybe some of the Psalms?), but it’s a very comprehensive collection.
Except. (My favorite part. What can I say, I’m easily amused.) Despite being called “The Complete Jewish Songbook for Children,” there is actually a volume 2! Note that this book doesn’t say anything about being volume 1. They made a “complete” songbook and then realized it’s not complete. I want to buy the second volume just to see what they could have possibly forgotten!
Since people often care about where authors are coming from, this book is published by the Reform movement (by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which is now called the Union for Reform Judaism). I don’t think the denomination affects the book, but it may affect which tunes are printed in the sheet music, since sometimes different tunes are more common in different places. But they do include multiple tunes for several songs, so maybe it’s not a problem after all. And while I don’t think this makes the book any less acceptable to an orthodox parent, there are a lot of English lyric songs. Many are hokey for sure, but that’s kid songs for you. Here’s a less-than-hokey English-y song.
How to Use It
Now, the nitty gritty. How do I actually use this book?
I use it in our Morning Time with my toddler (and technically the baby). With songs, I almost always start with YouTube, and I use YouTube to learn the song. Just because of how my brain works, I prefer videos that show the lyrics as they are sung. No music videos here. Transliterated videos are best for me to get my sea legs, but I’ve done it from Hebrew-only too, it just takes longer. We – meaning I – sing from the video every morning (except Shabbat, when I often skip the song altogether if I don’t know it well enough from memory).
Even when I know the tune and some of the words (like Adom Olam, the first song I tackled), I’m just weak at tying the words to the song and building the memory of it. That’s just not how my working memory works. On the other hand, learning a song to a bracha I already had memorized (Modeh Ani) took only a couple of days, though admittedly it’s much shorter.
With Adon Olam, I sang along with the video, as many words as I could, 2-3 times in a row. It seemed like a waste to get my footing in the song by the end and then stop. Eventually, as I got more comfortable with it and could sing a majority of the words along, I reduced to once a day. As I get more comfortable with the song, I begin shifting to singing along with written Hebrew lyrics if I’m using transliteration.
Useful sidenote: I’m a very slow Hebrew reader, which is why I like transliteration even after all these years. But this practice with song videos has made my brain significantly faster with Hebrew. I’m still weak, but maybe after a year or two of this I’ll be half-decent!
Where’s the book in all this? It’s coming. Once I’ve built this auditory foundation through YouTube, I begin singing from this book. I use book darts (these are the awesome ones I use that are pictured above on Adon Olam) to mark the page for easy finding. When we reach that part of Morning Time, I flip open the book and sing the song right from the lyrics written on the page. Only Adom Olam still requires the book, but I can (and do) spend half the song watching the toddler like a hawk instead of looking at the page. I always keep my finger alongside the text so I can find my place again more easily. One day, I’ll move beyond needing the book’s help too, but for this stage, the Complete Jewish Songbook is an excellent resource. And given the nature of the musical education I need to give my children, this book will be dog-eared. I was hesitant to spend the money, but it’s worth even the full price if you feel like songs are difficult for you. There are few books I can imagine getting so much use out of, year after year.
Songs I’ve learned with the toddler so far, with links to the YouTube video I used if I used one:
- Adom Olam
- Modeh Ani (this is an earworm, be prepared to sing it all day)
- The Four Questions/Mah Nishtana
- Dayenu
- Maoz Tzur
- V’Ahavta (from the Shema) is our current project
Here’s about half the table of contents:
Leave a Reply