Sivivon in Dmin

Welcome to Mandolin Sessions®. Since the holiday season is coming up, I thought it would be fun to play a Chanukah song this issue. The title of the song, Sivivon, is the Hebrew word for dreidel. The root of the word sivivon, sovev, means to turn. Interestingly, the root of the Yiddish word dreidel also means to spin. There are four Hebrew letters found on the dreidel; nun, gimel, hay and shin. These stand for the phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham, which means a great miracle happened there.

I chose to play Sivivon in Dmin. This allows for adding chords below the melody, and also gives us two octaves in which to play the tune. The melody uses the harmonic minor scale, which is like the natural minor scale with a raised seventh note. Starting on the tonic D, the harmonic minor scale contains the following notes; D E F G A Bb C# D. Before learning the tune, try playing this scale in one octave, starting on the open D string. Make sure to use one finger per note in the scale, so you'd use index finger for the Bb (A string, 1st fret) and middle finger for the C# (A string, 4th fret). Once you've tried the scale, let's play the melody in the low octave. You can really feel the spinning quality in the melody.

Now we'll play Sivivon in the upper octave, with some chords added below the melody. I generally add chords on the first beat of each measure. You can vary the arrangement a bit by playing chords on additional beats.

I hope you enjoyed playing Sivivon. I've included the transliterated words if you wish to sing it, and chord symbols above the melody to accompany either singing or other instruments playing the melody. We'll see you next issue, and have a happy holiday.

Seth

S'veevon, sov, sov, sov
Chanukah hu chag tov
Chanukah hu chag tov
S'veevon, sov, sov, sov

Nes gadol ha ya sham
Chag simcha hu-la-am
Nes gadol ha ya sham
Chag simcha hu-la-am

Seth Austen
seth@sethausten.com
http://www.sethausten.com

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