This is my personal list of sites with mp3 and other recordings of nusach and Jewish liturgy. I collected these links because I am deeply interested in the music of Jewish liturgy, and I want to learn every melody there is for everything. I am not likely to ever reach this impossible goal, but this list is my attempt at it, at least!
These resources are arranged by an algorithm that considers how extensive a resource the resource is in each area. This consideration is subjective, but if you are looking for a particular High Holiday tune, you are more likely to find it toward the top of the High Holiday page than the bottom. Resources in gray boxes contain significant non-Ashkenazi nusach, in some cases alongside Ashkenazi nusach and in other cases to its exclusion.
Keep posted, since I add new resources to this list from time to time. I am also working on a larger project, NusachDB, to collect the melodies themselves. If you know of any useful sites not on this list, or notice a miscategorization, please let me know at webmaster@offtonic.com. Notable missing (or not well-covered) recordings include the Saturday night portions of Maariv, Kiddush Levanah, the Hoshanot of Sukkot, the Hakafot and Chatan Torah passages of Simchat Torah, the Al Hanisim paragraph in the Amidah and Birkat Hamazon of Chanukah, Purim, and Yom Haatzmaut (in the Conservative tradition, anyway), the Haggadah chanting of the Magid and others, and, of course, any less famous melodies for well-covered services like Kabbalat Shabbat and Hallel. If you know of any sites with these, please send them along, or hey, record them yourself if you'd like!
Click "Catalogued recordings" to see which recordings or sheet music in a particular site have been added to NusachDB. For the foreseeable future, these do not represent the totality of recordings for most sites, but the lists will get more complete with time.
Please enjoy this list and may it increase your learning.
Great site with mp3's of nearly everything. This should always be the first stop. His nusach can be unique, at times, and he has great melodies that are hard to find elsewhere.
This is really, really cool. It's a very complete resource for London Sephardic nusach. This main site focuses on congregational melodies, but it links to Shaar Hashamayim for the chanting and the London Sephardi Choir Archive for choral recordings. Here, I consider them all together.
The first congregation in America! It's in the Spanish and Portuguese tradition, and it contains a wealth of recordings, including a complete Shabbat morning service, complete weekday services, complete parshiyot, and much more.
A really great resource on proper nusach, with explanations on phraseology and musicality throughout the recordings. Has nusach (chanting, not many melodies) for weekdays, Shabbat, festivals, high holidays. Even has Slichot!
An educational egalitarian institution that focuses on community building, and this used to include audio resources for leading services. There were recordings for weekdays, Shabbat, high holidays (including a great Ki Hineh Kachomer), etc., and they're still available under Archive. Now... it's an ambitious experience: a categorized collection of submitted recordings for the various parts of the various services. It's growing quickly and is already an extremely helpful resource. You can even search for melodies by tempo, time signature, or mode!
Complete weekday, Shabbat, and some other stuff.
This is a project by Faraj Samra to preserve and present Sephardic chazanut (the title probably gave that away, didn't it?). It's actively growing and receiving regular updates, so this information may soon be out of date. It contains Torah, haftarah, and Tehilim readings, and a very large chunk of the siddur (including melodies sometimes).
A huge and fairly comprehensive collection of German-tradition nusach recordings by a Marcel Lang. There's nusach for everything, and sometimes even several different versions. This site is superlatively good for Friday night recordings and has several unique tracks like the Purim Kiddush!
Also a great site with quite a bit, from the Conservative tradition. It has most of the Haggadah, as well as melodies for a lot of things on Shabbat and weekdays (all in streaming format). My second stop.
This is a shul (the oldest shul, in fact) in Rio de Janeiro, so the site and directions are in Portuguese. The nusach is Morrocan Sephardic, which is a different musical paradigm than what you see in Ashkenazi congregations: it's repetitive nusach with few melodies. Much of the recordings are beautiful CDs for listening rather than straight nusach. By way of translation, you can find recordings of Psalms, Kabbalat Shabbat (CD), the Kedusha set to a wide variety of beautifully recorded tunes (CD), Slichot (CD), the Mishna, Megilat Esther, the Haggadah (though there is no singing that I can tell, just chanting), and weekday nusach.
Note: under Tefilot; includes Amidah for 10 Days of Repentance and fast days, all services, a lot of additional stuff
A shul's website with a fairly inclusive collection, including Shabbat, nearly the entire weekday services, trope for everything, many, many Torah readings, and more.
Note: includes all of Pesukei D'zimra, shacharit (except the part around V'zot Hatorah), mincha, and maariv (all using the exact same nusach, by the way)
A bunch of recordings of Shabbat and weekday services. Some are quite musical.
Note: includes a 50-minute very musical recording of weekday Pesukei D'zimra and shacharit, and a melody for Achat Shaalti in Psalm 27 for maariv
In Portuguese. This was actually my father's synagogue when he was a child, catering to Egyptian Jews and later Syrian Jews, according to my father. It has extensive (nearly complete) recordings for weekdays and Shabbat, with the text and Portuguese translation, and the highlighting of the text follows along with the recordings. This includes shacharit/minchah/arvit for weekdays and Kabbalat Shabbat/arvit/kiddush/shacharit/musaf/minchah for Shabbat. Some of the recordings are from the Sephardic Hazzanut Project. This is a wonderful project of chazanut. In addition there is chanting for complete Tehilim as well.
Nusach samples from Shabbat and weekday. The Flash controls don't work, but the files still (mostly) exist, I think.
Fairly complete weekday recordings, including a Chasidic minchah, which even includes Al Hanisim for Chanukah and Purim, and additions for the Ten Days of Repentance. There's also a good collection of High Holiday recordings and videos with text.
Great site with lots of Chasidic recordings of melodies! Has a section for Sephardic and Chasidic melodies, too. Click on the download links to listen in your browser if the player doesn't work.
Note: under Davening; also includes a few things under Other
A cantor's website with a nice full section of recordings. Most of them are under Ritual Resources, especially under Services, but a few are under Music instead, including motif samples from High Holidays and scanned wedding music. Under Ritual Resources -> Torah -> Special, you can also find the Megilot, including Kohelet.
Note: includes complete shacharit, mincha, maariv; uses High Holiday trope for Torah service
A cantor's website with some excellent instructional recordings as well as plenty of concert and record tracks of chazanut and other music.
Quite an extensive set of recordings! Most are congregational melodies, but there's stuff here for Shabbat, weekdays, and high holidays, as well as haggadah tunes.
In somewhat mixed Hebrew and English. Contains very nice recordings of weekday and Shabbat nusach, though you have to download them; you can't listen in the browser. A run-down of which nusach to use in each part of the weekday services is also available, with short samples, under נוסח התפילה.
This is a big collection of very musical Dutch Jewish nusach, including sheet music in many cases. It covers many services, including weekday, Shabbat, chag, and High Holidays, with multiple versions at times. This is a very extensive resource. The nusach is in large part compatible with the common Eastern European nusach, and a large number of lectures are provided on the subject as well. The sheet music uses Dutch transliteration, however, so it will look funny to English speakers!
A messianic congregation's collection of recorded liturgy. It's a pretty good collection! It actually includes Al Hanisim for Purim in the Birkat Hamazon, as well as stuff for Shabbat, weddings, Pesach, and much more.
An Orthodox congregation, with plenty of great nusach recordings and audio classes. Other recordings are in the pages under Resources, including some beautifully harmonized recordings for Shabbat.
Note: includes (mostly) complete shacharit and mincha; Kaddish d'Rabbanan and mourner's kaddish are done in nusach; includes Yaaleh V'yavo in weekday morning nusach; mincha uses the exact same nusach as shacharit
Very well-chanted recordings of the weekday maariv and shacharit, Shabbat morning, and Shabbat mincha services. Includes V'hi Noam, the additions for Saturday night! There are also Pesach and High Holiday recordings under "Music". Temple Emanuel used to have an old site with Shabbat morning recordings as well. Those recordings are still available there, though the rest of the site no longer exists.
Note: includes a different Chatzi Kaddish nusach for Saturday night, as well as V'hi Noam and V'yivt'chu
In Box format, though the mp3's can be downloaded. The Shabbat morning recordings have quite a few songs rather than nusach. There are also some songs that have English as well.
Note: full mincha and maariv
In Italian. Huge archive of Italian recordings, including Italian laining, Italian nusach, and classes. There's a lot more there than I've been able to properly categorize, especially without an Italian siddur, so the notes below are (and will probably always be) incomplete.
Note: includes Shomer Yisrael in I Canti di Scoletta; includes, Pesukei D'zimrah (called Zemirot), and Shacharit ("giorni feriali" means "weekdays"), including a live recording of a complete service including the Torah reading, though the Amidah tracks are spoken rather than chanted
A site with audio of shiurim -- and a whole lot of nusach!
Rabbi Menashe Goldberger: Under Jewish Prayer, you can find pretty much complete weekday shacharit, shabbat Kabbalat Shabbat/maariv/shacharit/musaf/minchah, and festival maariv/shacharit/Hallel/musaf. There's Shabbat Rosh Chodesh musaf AND weekday Rosh Chodesh musaf. The Birkat Achrona tracks are only spoken. Some of the services here have unlabeled tracks, but it's easy to find stuff anyway. There are also Haggadah songs and Chanukah blessings.
Rabbi Moshe Hiller: Complete Esther and haftarah blessings.
Rabbi Jeremy Wieder: Leining for most of the year, including the entire Torah, Ruth, Esther, and Eichah.
Zohar Killian: Some recordings of the Camp Kesher song, V'zot Habrachah, and Chanukah blessings.
A synagogue website with an extensive set of nusach recordings. There's a complete Kabbalat Shabbat with multiple melodies per text, a complete Shabbat maariv with multiple melodies per text as well, a complete Shabbat shacharit (from Nishmat), Hallel, Shabbat Torah service, Shabbat musaf, weekday shacharit (up to kedusha), and weekday maariv. There's also trope for haftarah, Torah, High Holiday, and Esther.
Weekday nusach and high holiday recordings. The site is Flash-based and will not work with a Flash blocker. Interestingly enough, the menus at the top of the page are somewhat inconsistent, and a set of recordings for their junior congregation is difficult to find but present. That set has plenty of Shabbat, festival Amidah, and Hallel recordings as well as a large number of Torah readings, though the recordings are in alphabetical order.
Incredibly beautiful recordings of Kabbalat Shabbat, as well as a whole bunch of songs and zemirot. Includes weekday maariv and mincha.
Weekday and some Shabbat recordings.
Note: full maariv, repetition of mincha, most of shacharit
A synagogue's site with a bunch of audio files primarily for students of their religious school. In particular, the recordings for 4th and 5th graders are from a student collection called Hineni; I don't know exactly what is in them but they include liturgy like the Avot from the Shabbat morning amidah. Otherwise, there are recordings from Shabbat and weekdays, as well as a Birkat Hamazon with some less common tunes.
Some spoken recordings and aliyah blessings, as well as the entire weekday mincah and maariv services. Includes two different nuschaot for maariv.
A surprisingly large collection of audio classes, including model complete seders, songs (including actually teaching the songs) and blessings, stuff like that. It's basically an open directory structure, and it's just filled with stuff. It even has correct laining for Job, Proverbs, and Psalms! I should mention that there's much more in here than I can categorize myself, so if I missed anything, let me know! There are many recordings under Songs that I don't immediately recognize, so if you're looking for something in particular, it could be here. There are also many videos of classes which include songs and nusach at the main site.
There is a lot here! There are melodies and accompanied recordings for many things, and not so much nusach. If you aren't familiar with Chabad, you'll find exciting combinations here, like using the Hoshia et Amecha tune for the R'tzeh paragraph in the Birkat Hamazon. A fantastic resource.
Note: much of Shacharit in Tefillah Trax
In French. They sell CD's, but they also have videos and recordings, neatly categorized, including recordings and videos mostly from the Syrian and Tunisian traditions, often with the text as well. Recordings and videos range from traditional to accompanied and produced.
In French. A Tunisian synagogue in Paris, with quite a few recordings! I'm not sure why, but under Hazanoute, there are several recordings of the Kaddish and even more of the Kedushah, and they include Shabbat evening and morning. There are also a number of miscellaneous recordings, including piyutim, Sheva Brachot, havdalah, Shabbat morning, Brit Milah tunes, etc. Under Haguimes (Fêtes), aside from Torah and haftarah readings, there's Esther, the Haggadah in several recordings (including in Judeo-Arabic), Ruth, Eichah, and Slichot. Under Autres passages, there's Shir Hashirim, more Haggadah recordings, and a few other things like haftarah blessings and the Shema.
Tracks from a bar-mitzvah CD. Includes a nice Ashrei melody.
Note: includes Amidah
A Conservative synagogue. There are a few things from various Shabbat services, as well as Havdalah and weekday maariv.
Note: Maariv
In Hebrew. This is a big Judaism site that also has a bunch of recordings. Many are actually samples from Harav Levi Sudri, in the Moroccan tradition, but there are some weekday shacharit recordings as well in both Sephardic and Ashkenazic nusach. There's some sheet music as well; in particular, you can find [sheet music for z'mirot](http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/shabat/zmirot/tohen-2.htm) at some of these pages.
A handful of melodies for weekdays and havdalah, with copious directions (for example, for the kedushah).
A few Sephardic recordings by Cantor Hezkia Eliezer "Kiki" Arochas, including Kiddush, some Tehilim (Shirei Hamaalot), all of weekday Shacharit, and more.
Note: includes all of Pesukei D'zimrah, chanted through, as well as the blessings of Kriat Shema and the Shmoneh Esreh, through Elohai N'tzor, and then Ashrei to the end
A Modern Orthodox shul's with recordings of Shabbat minchah, some weekday davening, and a few other audio files.
Very extensive and very specific recordings of a lot of things, in Netherlands and Ashkenazi traditions. Really, really cool.
Note: just a few selections from Shacharit and Minchah
A bunch of really good instructional recordings for various services, including Shabbat minchah and the wedding Birkat Hamazon, as well as trope for Torah, haftarah, High Holidays, and Purim, Slichot, Shabbat maariv, shacharit, and P'sukei D'zimrah, the Kol Nidrei paragraph, Rosh Chodesh musaf, and festival kiddush. It's easy to miss the link at the bottom that says "Older Entries" -- there you'll find two versions of Hallel, more P'sukei D'zimrah, and weekday minchah.
In Hebrew. A site with Moroccan videos and such. Most are on YouTube, but it's fairly extensive. There are bakashot, Shabbat piyutim, etc.
A very thorough archive of pizmonim from Syria that also explains the maqam system, featuring the standard book of Syrian pizmonim and several auxiliary books, with integrated recordings and even videos.
A site to teach the Shabbat services. There are multiple versions of many things, interesting melodies, and it's rather thorough.
Note: includes Saturday night maariv
A RIDICULOUS Mediafire archive of chazzanut. RIDICULOUS. Great cantors, old recordings, many live and of low quality but still, and it's enormous. MANY recordings of Slichot -- more than you'd think exist! Shabbat, holidays, weekdays, you got it. Seriously cool stuff. It is chazzanut, though, mostly in the Golden Age style.
A Conservative synagogue with mp3's for a lot of stuff for Shabbat (and weekday maariv too). It's downloadable, which is nice, and it's a great resource.
Instruction on leading various blessings and services, partly aimed at teenagers (some sung fairly slowly). There are some High Holiday tracks as well, sung at regular speed.
Note: includes maariv
Several recordings of psalms, some to original melodies.
A small but varied selection of recordings, many of artistic settings, from Adon Olam and Eli Tzion to Shalom Rav and Maoz Tzur. From what I can tell, this list is also made by the E-Hazzan and contains mostly the same things as the blog.
Note: includes most of Mincha, including Tachanun
A Conservative synagogue; there are recordings for various blessings as well as haggadah tunes and a full weekady maariv.
Interesting -- a bunch of recordings of only the chatimot, along with sheet music for same. Only includes chatimot from "Baruch atah Adonai". Includes maariv and shacharit for Shabbat, weekdays, and festivals.
A set of (weekday) morning blessings, from Modeh Ani to the Torah reading, for children to learn the morning service. Includes Al Tira after Aleinu (under Amidah and End of Shacharit)
Great resource for Torah/haftarah trope and P'sukei D'zimrah, both with weekday nusach and the major Shabbat nusach.
An Orthodox synagogue with a few tracks on how to lead davening for weekday shacharit and Shabbat kiddush (night and day).
A recording of the basic weekday maariv service.
A yeshiva in Denver with recordings for weekday shacharit, not including the amidah, with tunes.
A site that aims to have recordings of everything, but it's not very populated yet, and it's unfortunately not easy to tell what's there and what isn't. There are some weekday nusach recordings, so far, and maybe other things as well.
A Reform synagogue's website with prayer melodies for its weekday morning minyan. It's Reform, so there's lots of singing.
Dutch Sephardic nusach, in old recordings, for large parts of weekdays, Shabbat, holidays, etc. You can also listen to an enormous treasure trove of old nusach tapes (instructions mostly in Dutch) as well as find sheet music for a variety of pieces of liturgy.
Note: a few parts of Friday Minchah
A cantor's website with some recordings, including some beautiful lullabies. There are links to YouTube videos under Shabbat in the Round and some recordings under Shaharit Live, but go under Skills and there are tons of files! Many songs as well as simple nusach.
Note: includes mincha
There are several Carlebach CD's available for purchase, but you can listen to the individual tracks on the site. These are great melodies, but as is usually Reb Carlebach's style, the words are usually just a line or two from the liturgy.
Various recordings from a Reconstructionist congregation. Note that the Reconstructionist text can vary from the original at times. Includes Torah blessings (with text) elsewhere on the site, and includes trope as well.
Note: includes what they call a Shivah service, which is a weekday maariv
A synagogue's site with a whole bunch of files. Unfortunately, they're .wma's, so it takes some hacking to get them to play on my Mac! Highlights include a great Kabbalat Shabbat service, a fairly complete Shabbat morning service from Shochen Ad, weekday afternoon (weekday evening is broken), and trope for many things.
A Karaite congregation with quite a few audio files of prayers and songs from the Egyptian Karaite tradition, including Shabbat, havdalah, kiddush, slichot, Esther, etc.
A synagogue website with a whole bunch of Shabbat recordings, as well as a weekday Amidah.
I really like going to services at this shul! The page is a bit hard to navigate, though. Shabbat recordings (for children) are under Congregational Learning. High Holiday Tunes are at the Shabbat and Prayer link (not the one that shows up in the menu), and for extra confusion, the link that does show up in the menu is Chazzan Saul Wachs's recording, which is separate. Several of the High Holiday Tunes are borrowed from other sites as well, so check those out!
Note: first two blessings of Mincha Amidah, using the egalitarian text for Avot v'Imahot
In French. A site of shiurim that also includes some recordings of nusach (Sephardic). Some are under Chabbath -> Chants du Chabbath (includes many zemirot and other piyutim), a few are under La Prière (most of the pages there are empty, though), and a few are under Les fêtes juives -> Pessa'h. Not all of the recording links work, unfortunately.
Note: includes the sefirat haomer for every day, but nothing under Les prières journalières
This is a site mostly for transliterations, but some of them have a music symbol that provides recordings.
Note: first blessings of the Amidah and Sim Shalom
A synagogue in Pinner, outside of London. There are a few recordings of Shabbat morning under Davening Recordings, with a few general Shabbat recordings under Songs for the 5-8s Service and a page with Ashrei and An'im Z'mirot. There are weekday recordings under Minchah and Ma'ariv Recordings, not easily linked from the main site.
All of Ashrei, beginning of weekday Amidah, beginning part of Torah service
A Conservative synagogue's guide to Tachanun at minchah.
Shiurim and music of Breslov chasidim. In Hebrew. Like other Chasidish sites, it also contains quite a few instrumental tracks, and the audio quality varies for older recordings. Loading times can be very slow! The Breslov chasidim use the Chasidish Nusach Sefard.
Note: includes a few verses before the Friday afternoon service (שירי ברשירי ברסלב - ניגוני חסידי ברסלב: נוסח התפילותש)
A whole bunch of Sephardic recordings. If it's similar to the Liturgical Music of Shaar Hashamayim website, it's because it's made by the same person! The content is different, though, and there's a lot more detail in some of the pages, including texts of prayers and piyutim. Jewish Table Singing is a sister site and features many of the same recordings.
A big collection of songs, focusing on zemirot and piyutim, with words, translation, and often multiple recordings (though some have none). It's not organized by occasion, so I could be off in my categorizations, but this should be a primary resource for zemirot. There are some Indian (Bene Israel) tunes, but they're all cut off after exactly one minute. Be careful, too, because a few of the recordings are sung without particular attention to pitch!
Note: includes Acheinu, V'erastich Li, V'lirushalayim (Amidah)
A wealth of Spanish and Portuguese melodies (and some chazanut), including parts of Hallel, S'lichot, festival liturgy, Shabbat, and a whole bunch of stuff, along with a bit of info on each melody.
Various Chasidic recordings and niggunim. Has an extensive section on Ana B'choach and three versions of Shoshanat Yaakov.
Note: a niggun for a blessing in the weekday Amidah, under Chabad
A few digitized music collections from the JTS library. It includes field recordings of laining (examples from most books of the Tanach, at least) from 1936-8 Israel, which are naturally very scratchy and whose titles are in Hebrew, some music from Cochin, India, and Jewish art music manuscripts. The interface, I should warn, is horrendous, as sadly befits a library website.
A series of blog posts about liturgy, usually including musical examples (though these are usually chazzanut rather than synagogue nusach). Since it's a blog, things aren't organized by subject, so my rankings may be off. There are also numerous demo excerpts from commercial CD's rather than full tracks, and many of the older posts have broken file links.