Orthodox Jewish Music for Events in Los Angeles

Sheva brachot (sheva brachos, as many Ashkenazi families say) are the festive meals held in the couple's honor in the seven days after the wedding, when the seven wedding blessings are said again after Birkat Hamazon, the grace after meals most people call benching. So the evening has a shape: the meal, the speeches and, in many homes, singing and dancing around the chassan and kallah (the groom and the bride), then benching and the blessings.

Hosts usually want three things from the music: something soft under the conversation, a short burst of simcha songs when the room is ready to dance, and silence the moment someone picks up the microphone. Nothing is played on Shabbat, so the Shabbat meals of the week belong to the guests' own singing; the weeknights and Motzei Shabbat are where music fits in.

There's a lovely echo to plan for. Asher Bara sets the words of the last of the seven blessings, and Od Yishama sings phrases from that same blessing, so at a sheva brachot the songs and the blessings answer each other.

A l'chaim is the small, quick toast when an engagement is agreed. The vort is the larger engagement party a few weeks later, with both families and their friends, and often a mechitza (the partition between the men's and women's sides). When the plate is broken and the room calls out mazal tov, that's the cue for the first simcha song.

Engagements don't wait for anyone's calendar, so the setup stays light: a compact speaker, a microphone for the speeches, and music that moves from background to simcha songs once the families start to dance. With a mechitza, each side gets its own speaker. Send the date and the address as soon as you have them, and we'll check availability.

An upsherin (many Sephardic families say chalakah) is a boy's first haircut, usually at three. His peyot (sidelocks) are left in place, he begins wearing a kippah (a skullcap) and tzitzit (the fringed garment), and a grandfather or a rabbi often makes the first cut. Many families hold it on Lag BaOmer, the 33rd day of the count from Pesach (Passover) to Shavuot, and a boy born between Pesach and Lag BaOmer is commonly cut that day.

Music isn't part of the custom, so whether there's any at all is up to you. Some families want only a microphone for the rabbi and the blessings; others want Lag BaOmer songs playing while family and friends take their turn with the scissors.

If you're gathering upsherin party ideas, sound is the easy part: a speaker sized to your backyard or living room, and a volume that three-year-olds and their grandparents can both enjoy.

A siyum celebrates finishing a tractate (one of the books) of the Mishnah or the Talmud, and its meal is a seudat mitzvah, a festive meal held for a mitzvah. Whether it's a few friends around a table or the whole shul (synagogue) in its social hall, the person who finished deserves to be heard: we bring the microphone and the sound, and music for the singing if you want it.

Hachnasat sefer Torah, the welcoming of a new Torah scroll, spills into the street: the scroll is carried under a chuppah (a wedding-style canopy) with singing and dancing, children often carry candles, and the shul's other scrolls come out to meet it. These days a vehicle with lights and a sound system often heads the procession.

We can provide sound for the procession and for the dancing inside the shul. Bring the route, the timing and whatever your shul has arranged to the planning call, and we'll plan it together.

When people look for simcha music, they usually mean the songs a Jewish room starts singing on its own: Od Yishama, Siman Tov U'Mazal Tov, Yosi Piamenta's Asher Bara, Yaakov Shwekey's Shomati. Around them, a Chassidic crowd wants fast Jewish dance music, a Modern Orthodox crowd Jewish pop as well, a Sephardic family Mizrahi (Middle Eastern Jewish) rhythms, and Israeli religious guests the songs they grew up with in Israel. Carlebach melodies are there for families who ask for them.

Then we ask where your family draws its lines. Only Jewish music, or some Israeli hits too? Only male singers, for families who keep kol isha (men not listening to a woman's singing voice)? Your answers go into a short written plan you see before the simcha, and that plan is what your DJ plays.

If your rav (your family's rabbi) wants to see the plan, share it with him; any change he asks for goes straight in.

Sefirah, the counting of the Omer, covers the seven weeks from Pesach to Shavuot, and many families keep part of it as a time of mourning — which part depends on the community, with Lag BaOmer a break in it. The Three Weeks run from the 17th of Tammuz, a summer fast day, to Tisha B'Av, the fast that mourns the destruction of the Temples; the Nine Days at the end are the more intense stretch. Customs differ widely, so the first call is to your rav.

Smaller simchas carry on. Engagements are celebrated during Sefirah; in the Three Weeks an engagement party is usually held without music or dancing, as are most sheva brachot unless the family's rav says otherwise. Rabbis also differ on music at a siyum in the Nine Days.

When a family asks for vocal-only music, we plan an a cappella program to the same standards as the rest of your music. Some rabbis treat vocals processed to sound like instruments as instrumental music, so ask your rav about the particular style; whatever he says, we plan to it.