Project status - and The Song in the Night

At the rate I'm going, it will take another 8 years to finish!

So from the chart: words are now at 32%. That's a middle term. It counts words that are translated (some by automation) but the full verse may not have been done. Actual words touched are even higher - nearly 40% or even much higher, but some of the guesses are not so hot so I don't count them. just over 57000 of 304000 approx. (about 1/6th) are completely untouched.

Some 18920 verses are touched word by word, but 16867 verses have no draft. I.e. the words don't add up to sentences etc.

Chapters are at 30% up from 24% 3 months ago.

Over the past 6 months I have only managed about 8 verses a day average. Probably that's the result of staying healthy and getting out on bike or foot and vehicle to the University every day. My average dropped to 5 verses per day when it had been between 13 and 15 per day. Target had been 24! Words per day is very high (over 200) - but that's due to automation and it remains to be seen what the impact will be of my carefully controlled but simple pattern matching look-ahead algorithms. With just over 200,000 words to go, if I keep up the average, the days required to finish are 1000 - just 3 or so years.

But I have been busy these past 3 months. I've done my next book. The working title is Song in the Night.

Ask me if you want to read it. It's about the music. The abstract of the technical sections is similar to that of my paper for the SBL regional conference in May:

This article looks at the cantillation signs (also known as te’amim, or accents) in the Hebrew text of the Bible and how they directly translate into Music according to well-defined and consistent rules. These rules, inferred from the position and use of the accents by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura in the 20th century, increase transparency of individual verses, reveal inter-verse relationships, complex sentence constructions across multiple verses, inter-chapter and even inter-book connections that cannot be easily understood without the aural component that allows recognition of the musical motifs. Besides the beauty and clarity of the transformation of the Scripture, her work is also confirmed by the similarity of her deciphering of Psalm 114 and the 9th tone of traditional Gregorian chant, tonus peregrinus, still used in Anglican chant for Psalm 114.

 The 5 inner chapters are an overview of the Old Testament story in music.

Chapters 2 through 6 scan the canonical history in five stages: Creation, Escape, Home, Exile, Restoration. They summarize the story of the God of Israel and the people of Israel with many musical examples. Their music is an integral part of the narrative of the book. All the examples are in line and meant to be read and the performance imagined by non-musician or musician in the normal sequential act of reading a book.

Here's part of the preface:

This volume outlines a special beauty of the text of the Hebrew Bible. The music in these pages is derived entirely and consistently from the text of the Hebrew. The compact hand signals embedded syllable by syllable in the text of the Hebrew were transcribed automatically by computer program and the resulting musical scores have not been altered except to add a translated libretto.

The decoding of these signals follows the deciphering key inferred by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura. Her inductive approach to the musical information structure of the accents from the 20th century has given us a new way of appreciating the ancient Scriptures, both poetry and prose.

One aspect of this new way is that we can now imagine what it might have been like for the ancients to hear and perform their Scripture as an art song. It is as if we seekers, light years away from earth, have reached out, snared, and decoded the equi-tempered frequencies of the golden (snitch) record that led Explorer II into the universe. And, as with Bach, it will take us time to appreciate the depth of the expression of the music.

In my first book on the Bible, I followed the thesis that the book of Psalms is not a random collection of songs but a carefully constructed story. In this second book, it can be seen that the Bible is not only a set of stories to be read but also a carefully constructed and beautiful song to be heard.

There is now a full table of contents:
1. Languages

• Coded language 
• Musical language 
• Extended markup language 
• Hebrew language 
• Polemical language 
• Conclusion 

Preview: Tradition knows that the signs are somehow both exegetical and musical. Tradition also recognizes that the musical meaning has been lost (Wickes 1881 :2n). It then assumes that grammatical analysis or punctuation is the dominant use for the accents (ibid. :3n). If I have to read a complex treatise with 25 or 30 unpronounceable words and contorted simplification about the conjunctive and disjunctive hierarchical roles of diacritics, then I simply won't do it. If I have to listen to transparent, dramatic, and beautiful music and don't have to be told what I am hearing because it catches my ear and spirit, then I will hear and love the result. What you will hear in this book is transparent without all the explanations of how it is done. The rules are easily learned. Sight singing is easily learned. Lessons sung with these instructions are dramatic. The result is beauty and clarity. I hope through the music to focus on greater engagement with the sensibility of the text and its expressiveness.

2. Creation

• Beginnings 
• Leviathan 

3. Escape

• Rescue 
• Sanctuary 
• Wandering 
• Instruction 
• Commandment 

4. Home

• Earth 
• Monarchy 
• Riddle 

5. Exile

• Protest 
• Lament 
• Servant 

6. Restoration

• Trust 
• Returned 
• Consoled 
• Redeemed 
• Praise 

7. Haïk-Vantoura’s system

• The parts of the text 
• The deciphering key 
• Modes 
• Singing 
• Pulse 
• Awkward intervals 
• Word painting 
• Arrangements 
• Translation 
• The Name 
• Invocations, selah and other words 
• The 21 Books and the 3 Books 
• History 
• The simplest summary 
• The location for all the music 
• Acknowledgements 
• References 

Appendix 1 Selected Lectionary Components (These are fully singable scores)

• Deuteronomy 8.6-18, Year A Thanksgiving 
• 1 Samuel 17.31-49, Year B Season after Pentecost 
• Psalm 96, Christmas, all years, Year C, proper 4 
• Psalm 118, Easter, all years 

Appendix 2 Comparing cantillation schemes

• Jacobson 
• McKorkle 
• Behrens 
• Reuchlin 
• Weil 
• Minor deviations 

Appendix 3

• Statistics 
• Reconciling names

Figure 1 The Aleppo codex, 2 Samuel 19.1
Figure 2 Highlighting the accents
Figure 3 A portion of 2 Samuel 19.1
Figure 4 Musical terms for the notes of a scale
Figure 5 Interpreting the accents - 1
Figure 6 Interpreting the accents - 2
Figure 7 Tonus peregrinus plainsong
Figure 8 Tonus peregrinus Anglican chant
Figure 9 Accents as kings, lords, emperors
Figure 10 The Aleppo codex, Psalm 96.1
Figure 11 Part of the Leningrad Codex, 2 Samuel 19.1
Figure 12 The deciphering key
Figure 13 Ornaments for the 21 books
Figure 14 Ornaments for the 3 books
Figure 15 Modes as used by Haïk-Vantoura
Figure 16 Traditional Cantillation Zephaniah 3.8
Figure 17 Zephaniah 3.8 Haïk-Vantoura
Figure 18 Reuchlin, Discantus
Figure 19 Reuchlin, Bassus
Figure 20 Ole-veyored, as programmed
Figure 21 Ole-veyored (Mitchell)
Figure 22 Occurrences of ole-veyored by reciting note
Figure 23 Frequency by verse of ornaments in the text of the prose books
Figure 24 Frequency by verse of ornaments in the text of the poetry books
Figure 25 The revia-mugresh
Figure 26 Poetic accent in Nehemiah 13.5, ignored
Figure 27 Ornament pairs that repeat on their own
Figure 28 Ornaments occurring four in a row
Figure 29 Ornaments occurring three in a row on their own
Figure 30 Ornaments occurring in pairs on their own

and there are over 200 interleaved musical examples. (You can tell what my favorite bits are - at least the ones I have translated.)

Torah

• Genesis 1.1, 1.3, 
• Exodus 1.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.13, 3.14, 15.1, 15.2, 15.23, 15.24, 16.2, 16.3, 20.2, 20.2-4, 20.13-16, 25.8, 25.22, 
• Leviticus 4.4, 4.6, 19.18, 
• Numbers 11.11-12, 22.30, 23.7, 24.5, 
• Deuteronomy 5.3, 5.6, 5.31, 6.4, 33, 6.5, 8.6-18, 12.8, 28.63, 32.21-22, 

Prophets

• Judges 17.6, 
• 1 Samuel 2.1, 3.11, 12.3, 17.31-49, 17.33, 17.39, 17.40, 17.42, 
• 2 Samuel 12.10, 12.11, 12.12, 19.1, 22.2, 23.1, 
• 1 Kings 1.39, 8.9, 9.3, 11.4, 
• Isaiah 1.2, 1.5, 2.4, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.9, 12.1-6, 40.1, 40.2, 40.3, 52.13, 52.14 -53.12, 55.1, 63.3, 65.25, 
• Ezekiel 20.25, 
• Hosea 5.14, 
• Joel 4.2, 4.10, 
• Zephaniah 3.8, 
• Zechariah 14.9, 

Writings

• Proverbs 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.9, 2.11, 2.12-20, 8.13, 8.23, 8.30, 8.33, 9.10, 
• Psalms 1.1, 1.2, 4.7, 14.8, 16.1, 6.2, 18.3, 24.7, 31.16, 32.9, 33.3, 42.9, 43.1, 43.2, 44.20, 45.8, 49.5, 49.8, 50.13, 51.6, 51.16, 51.21, 72.1, 74.11, 74.14, 75.9, 80.4, 80.9, 80.13, 84.2, 89.2, 89.40, 90.1, 90.3, 90.8, 90.9, 90.13, 91.2, 91.10, 95.10, 95.11, 96, 102.1, 104.26, 104.34, 105.1, 106.47, 110.6, 111.9, 112.5, 114 mode 1, 114 mode 8, 115.1, 117, 118.1-2,14-24, 118.14, 118.18, 119.1, 120.5, 121.1, 122.6, 123.3, 124.7, 125.4, 126.5, 127.3, 128.6, 129.2, 130.6, 131.1, 132.8, 133.1, 134.3, 135.1-5, 135.4, 135.6-8, 146.6-10, 150.6, 
• Job 1.1, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8-9, 3.4, 6.1, 8.1, 14.1-4, 14.15, 19.21, 30.19, 38.41, 41.18, 42.8, 
• Song 1.4, 2.7, 2.15, 7.1, 
• Lamentations 1.1-2, 5.21, 
• Ruth 2.22, 
• Qohelet 3.1-3, 3.4-8, 
• Nehemiah 10.40, 
• 1 Chronicles 16.5, 16.8, 16.23-33, 28.3, 16.35, 
• 2 Chronicles 7.1, 34.1, 

Finally, these are my objectives:

• To make the text clearer in intent from the music. 
• To examine how the music suggests interpretation. 
• To give a brief on the overall story with musical examples.