Websites with Audio Files for Prayer Services

Here are some links to websites with audio files for davening (ritual prayers of the services), in no particular order:

Conservative:
http://www.caa-austin.org/religious/index.php?page=shabbatserv#shabbatatcaa
http://netivottest.org/audio_guide
http://nuconservices.wordpress.com/audio/http://www.sidduraudio.com/index.html

Conservative and/or Orthodox*
http://www.kehilathadar.org/node/21

Orthodox:
http://www.virtualcantor.com/
http://siddur.org/transliteration-support/synagogue-audio-commentary

Reform:
http://www.bethelsudbury.org/jewish_basics/text002.php3

* Kehilat Hadar positions itself between traditional Conservative and Open Orthodox. I checked the "Birchot haShahar" file and found that it neatly skips the three verses that are done differently by Conservative Jews simply saying that the nusach is the same for all verses. I want to take the time to listen to enough of the other files to check for the other small differences. If someone figures out if the audio files are definitely C or O, let me know.

The Virtual Cantor website sells all the files on CD for only $20. SiddurAudio also sells CD's: the three CD Shabbat set is $46.50 and the Weekday CD is $17.50 (Odd amount: I would have thought they'd choose $18 = Chai)

The voices (both male and female) and styles vary, of course. For example, Rabbi Mark Zimmerman of SiddurAudio has a pleasant voice, but he has a tendency to add a kind of extra "uh" half-syllable to the end of words and it drives me nuts. A rabbi member of my minyan does something like this at the end of every verse when he reads Torah.

Disclaimer: I have mostly collected the links rather than really listened to them.

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Here is an online list of 34 sites with mp3 or recordings of nusach (melody of a prayer service):
http://offtonic.com/nusach/nusach.html

The list has many of the sites I listed above.

For an past version of the list, some of the links didn't work, and I haven't checked to see if they are corrected on the new website. For the old list, I found that I could work around problems by trimming back to the homepage which would usually allow me to find the right links to the webpage with the audiofiles.

For example, the link for "Beth El Congregation - Learning our Services" was:
http://www.bethelcong.org/index.php?opti....id=42&Itemid=70

But it didn't work, so I trimmed the long URL back just the first part:
http://www.bethelcong.org
which took me to the shul's homepage. Then I chose the "Learning our Services" link from the left hand navigation column to get the right link:
http://www.bethelcong.org/learning-our-services

I found the original website list of 33 sites (now 34 sites) through Rabbi Josh Feigelson's site (I met him when he was the rabbi of the Northwestern Univ Hillel):
http://joshfeigelson.wordpress.com/torah/recorded-liturgy/
Rabbi Josh is Orthodox so he uses the standard substitutions for various references to God since he is not actually davening. For example: "Adoshem" for Adonai, "Elokeinu" for Eloheinu, etc. This can make his recordings difficult for beginners to use since he doesn't sing the words as they are actually said in actual use.

Hi, Debbie! Thank you for linking to my site, the list of 33 sites at http://web.mit.edu/braunst/www/nusach.html, or should I say, my former site. It is now no longer there, and it's moved to http://offtonic.com/nusach/nusach.html . It also has a lot more than 33 sites now and it's ever growing! Please update the link so that people can find this resource.

Oh wow, what a wonderful collection of links! (I changed the website URL in the first post to the new URL.)

Thanks for finding this post, mauro7inf, and giving the updated info.

I was recently reminded of one of many reasons I love my lay-led minyanim: I heard two or three different tunes for many of the parts of Hallel in the several times that I heard this service over Pesach. I was once very disappointed by an Orthodox women's-only bat mitzvah done on a Rosh Hodesh in which Hallel was just mumbled through without any tunes at all.

Whoever leads services in either of my minyanim gets to choose nusach---most often standard traditional Ashkenazi, with Carlebach tunes being the most popular variation. However, people generally add only a limited number really different tunes that others are not likely to know. It would make people uncomfortable if no tunes were familiar, and it would probably be considered to be in bad taste to do too many tunes that no one could follow so it turned into a "performance" rather than being participatory. To be honest, I personally have a hard time picking up a new tune. I've been at sessions in which a niggun is taught and I'm still struggling to remember it after a dozen rounds.

A favorite trick at my minyanim is also to do some part of the service using a modern tune with a similar theme to the parashah or a holiday tune. For example, for one service this past week we sang "Adon Olam" to the tune of "Dayenu" and another time to "Adir Hu". And the first part of Kedusha was sung to another seder tune, but I don't remember which.

Anyway, I'll enjoy browsing and listening to some of these new audio files.

Great!! Thanks for the links!

And here are some sites with Sephardic audio recordings:
http://www.sephardichazzanut.com/default.htm
http://www.pizmonim.com/

Basically it's the same prayer service style as we have here in Belgrade, but there are differences, of course. Belgrade Sephardic community was under the Ottoman Turkish rule for quite some time, so the Ottoman oriental musical influences are also obvious in the melodies that we use. It is interesting that some of the melodies we use in the prayer service can also be found in the traditional singing corpus of Serbian and Bosnian people (in Serbian/Bosnian language), where they usually have romantic love-based textual theme. It is a great phenomenon to research and to write about. I might try to do that once. :)

These Sephardic websites are great! I really like some of the tunes for Yigdal (for Friday night) on the first website. I wish I had a better audio memory and a better voice because I would love to teach my minyan a new tune. We use several different tunes and people will sometimes learn a new tune and introduce it to the others.

That's great, Debbie! I'm sure you will memorize the tune if you listen to it for some time! I often just play tunes from these sites casually, while doing some other stuff in my room, so it's quite easy to recall the melody later. :)

I'll try to find some tunes characteristic for our synagogue, and if I don't succeed, I may record myself singing... One day.

Please do so!!!
I would love to learn them :)
I like Easter & Ottoman music, often sing along with recording of (secular) music in those styles, so learning these would be natural, in a way, I guess. Or at least very pleasurable

And....thanks!

I listened to a few melodies...learning and enjoying :)