48: Noah Aronson makes musical moments

I met Noah when he came to a big synagogue in the Kansas City Metro and spent a weekend with us there. I was teaching kids songs every Sunday, so he trooped around with me and my brilliant guitar-playing assistant and interacted with every age group with us during the day. He says in this podcast that he loves getting down with the kids on the ground and interacting with them in the moment, and that is exactly what I remember most about his presence: He was right there with you. 

I still play a few of his songs, old and new, at my current Sunday School gig, and I always loved his energy and … really, his being he brings during music. And that’s funny, because he plays with my opening question. I tell guests, “You’ll start with, ‘I’m BLAH, and I do BLAH.’” And, well, he takes me literally. But then he gets on a philosophizing train in the moment about how “I am” can be so powerful—what we tell people about ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, what we really are. And he comes to a much wider statement when he gets to the end of it here, and I dug it. 

Then we go on to talk about how Noah got into music, got into Jewish music, got into and out of rabbinic school, and got into his current place. He still makes Jewish music. He still visits and works with synagogues. But he’s dipped back into his old love of theater recently, and he took the COVID break from shul-touring to make a new, different kind of music, which he’ll talk about here. 

Anyway, I always wanted to find out how Noah got started and why he does what he does in his way. And he very kindly told me. And now you.  

If you like his vibe, you'll also like him here: 

> M.O.V.E., a BeMajor Production by Noah Aronson, on Apple Music, Spotify, or in his album release concert on YouTube 

> The BeMajor Podcast, with links here 

> BeMajor, which offers Noah’s guidance on music in wellbeing, music theory, songwriting, and more 

He doesn’t market these in this podcast, but I wanted you to know, if you like him, there’s more to like. 

P.S. This is two podcasts in a row where something was a little wonky about the audio. In this case, Noah sounds fabulous, and I sound scratchy/staticky. Thankfully, I shut my piehole most of the podcast. 

P.P.S. My old boss in her new career as kick-ass executive coach is thinking about healthy feedback right now, and so my last question was about feedback. His answers were great. Thanks for the question, Marnette.