I have suggested we need a ladder to get out of the pit we are in when we see only sequences of accents. Describing the ladder is a long process, so I have divided it into five parts. They will appear each day until the first of February.
- Introduction,
- Going up to the subdominant,
- Going down from the subdominant,
- Verses without a rest on the subdominant,
- and further subdivisions for long verses.
Perhaps the first question about this subset of the accents (those below the text) is: which accents are most frequent, and where? Silluq terminates 99.99% of the verses. Atnah is in 93% of the verses and always at a particular hiatus in the thought. Here is complete agreement among all parties. Now translate the two accents known to be the emperors to tonic and subdominant, and for a musician, the immediate result is a creative response. Aha - this I understand.
Starting off with the 'base' of the ladder. The individual accents below the text occur as follows in this many verses. (Some of course will occur more than once per verse, of which much more detail later).
Note
|
Accent Name
|
Count
of
Verses
|
|
c
|
darga
|
3,063
|
|
d
|
galgal, (tevir)
|
7,186
|
|
e
|
silluq
|
23,195
|
(2 missing, but there are several where silluq is not the final.)
|
f
|
merkha
|
19,411
|
|
g
|
tifha,
(d'khi)
|
21,894
|
|
A
|
atnah
|
21,559
|
|
B
|
munah
|
19,087
|
|
C
|
mahpakh, (yetiv)
|
10,639
|
Now consider the first combinations. Musically, I would expect a number of common sequences of approach to the subdominant and back to the tonic.
Here is the list showing how often the sequence of a pair of notes occurs by itself on the way to the atnah:
Sequence | Accents | Freq | (Ref) |
e A | e-sil A-atn | 48 | ... |
g A | g-tif A-atn | 34 | ... |
B A | B-mun A-atn | 20 | ... |
f A | f-mer A-atn | 14 | ... |
C A | C-mph A-atn | 1 | Proverbs 1:9 |
Notice that c A and d A never occur as a phrase on their own to the mid-point of the verse.
Similarly there may be just a pair of notes returning from the atnah.
Sequence | Accents | Freq | (Ref) |
A e | A-atn e-sil | 670 | 53 in the 21 books, the rest in the 3 books |
A f | A-atn f-mer | 4 | the 3 books only |
A B | A-atn B-mun | 1 | Psalms 31:20 |
A d | A-atn d-gal | 1 | Judges 13:18 |
Genesis 15:8 - A short first part of the verse |
Proverbs 1:9 - a 2 note phrase C A with ornaments, followed by a 2 note phrase with ornaments. |
To be continued ...
(1) Jeffrey Burns, The Music of Psalms, Proverbs and Job in the Hebrew Bible: With an
Audio CD. Jüdische Musik 9. XIII + 169 pp. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 2011. Initial post here.
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