Ben Yehuda Drummers and Sefira Music

This is a picture I took yesterday night in Ben Yehuda. These drummers keep playing for over 4 hours every Motze Shabbes and they've become part of this street's peculiar array of musicians. At some point a woman stormed in and started doing belly dancing, and although not all the drummers were religious, they immediately stopped playing. One of the things you can only see in Israel - hippies playing music not for stam partying but for Hash-m. Nice.

Incidentally, these drummers reminded me of another post I was planning to write about music in the Sefira. I gave up on that, because I got dragged to another issue, namely, listening to music during the WHOLE year. According to the foremost poskim, only drumming (hence the connection) is allowed and that is by the way the source of the old Jerusalemite minhag of not using full bands for weddings in the city - people only hire drummers. I was told that the Jews in Yemen used to be makpid and wouldn't listen to music throughout the year.

Anyways, one thing is clear - the music from the Ben Yehuda drummers is Kosher Lemehadrin.

(I refer you to this antique discussion in Hirhurim, which deals with this topic and has great comments)