Nicky Silver is known around Berkeley and Oakland for her shofar abilities, but not in the way you might expect.
She can deftly handle the blasts we hear at High Holiday services: tekiah, shevarim, t’ruah and tekiah gedolah. But the 76-year-old Oakland chiropractor can also coax a ram’s horn into playing George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” and Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “In the Mood.”
She can play those tunes — and many more — on the shofar. In fact, Silver can figure out how to play any song she hears. For her, it’s actually easier to play music by hearing it than by reading it.
She belongs to Berkeley’s Chochmat HaLev and Piedmont’s Kehilla Community Synagogue, both Renewal congregations. She’s blown the shofar at High Holiday services for Kehilla, as well as for Rabbi Jill Zimmerman’s online community Hineni. Silver has also served in a lay cantorial role in Massachusetts and has long volunteered with a chevra kadisha to help prepare bodies for burial.
Originally from Long Island, New York, Silver said her musical education consisted of studying the clarinet during fifth grade and playing a bit of piano.
About three decades ago, she asked her then-partner for a shofar for her birthday. She took to it easily.
She started to sound the shofar during the High Holidays and kept that up for more than a decade. Then one year during the month of Elul leading up to Rosh Hashanah — when traditional Jews try to hear the shofar daily in preparation for the coming High Holidays — she began focusing on perfecting one note. She practiced it until she could feel it. Then she moved on to another note.
“Rather than just tooting a horn, I was more embodied,” she said. “I’m very kinesthetic.”
Around the same time, her then-partner was becoming an American citizen. In a moment of inspiration, Silver grabbed her shofar and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” came out, as did “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”
“It was revelatory,” she said.
She hasn’t stopped since.
Silver, who said she now has a three-octave range on the shofar, has never seen or heard of anyone else who plays songs on one. (A quick search on YouTube yields many nontraditional shofar sounds, but not recognizable songs.)
So what does she do with this quirky ability? She has played songs on the shofar at Jewish retreats and fundraisers. Then last year she had another personal revelation. While experimenting, she started softly making a sound and then allowed it to build slowly. The result was a mournful wail.
Silver asked if she could play the sorrowful sound at Chochmat HaLev’s memorial service for the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
That experience has led her into a new, deeper relationship with the horn.
“It was like the shofar was crying,” she said. “It was as if the sound was expressing the community’s tears. It was an emotional experience … and I was the conduit.”