Back to the accents over and under the Hebrew text of the Bible

 We must have been here before. But why do I think I am missing the basic visual facts of these marks of taste? Because I hear conversations where we are either tied up in knots over naming these marks, or tied up in melismas over interpreting them.

Here's the table of accents again. 

The Accents of the Hebrew Bible relating to the Music
Below the text			Above the text
Reciting Note		Accent name		Ornament relative to the reciting note	Full name of the ornament
c*	֧	darga*	֝֗	ger-rev	revia-mugrash
d	֢ ֛	galgal, (tevir)	֨	pas	pashta
e	ֽ	silluq	֜	ger	geresh
f	֥	merkha	֞	tar*	tarsin
g	֭	tifha, (d'khi)	֡	paz	pazer
A	֑	atnah	֔	z-q*	zaqef-qatan
B	֣	munah	֕	z-g*	zaqef-gadol
C	֚	mahpakh, (yetiv)	֙	qad	qadma
dm	֦	double merkha, kefulah	֒	seg*	segol
			֘	zar*	zarqa, tsinnor
			֩	t-q*	telisha qetana
			֠	t-g*	telisha gedolah
			֟	qar*	qarne farah
			֓	shl**	shalshelet
			֬	ill**	illuy
			֫	ole**	ole
			֗	rev	revia

Basic assumptions are these.

• They appear in a fully-formed system in the Aleppo Codex.
• They are considered a musical notation.
• They are all hand signals used by the ancients for conducting the melodies.
• The original music is 'lost'.

Basic observations are these.

• Some are placed below the text. 
• Every verse in the Bible has accents below the text.
• Some are placed above the text.
• About 14% of the verses have no accents above the text.
• Two shapes are used both below and above the text. All others are distinct.
• There is a very consistent usage matching the sense and accentuation of the words.
• atnah occurs 0 or 1 times per verse.
• Every verse ends with silluq. It may occur within a verse also.
• There are two overlapping subsets of these accents. 
• Subset 1 occurs in the three books of poetry. ** above means only used in subset 1.
• Subset 2 occurs in the other 21 books and in the narrator's parts in the 3 books. * above means only used in subset 2.
• In the poetry books ole always occurs with merkha following and in one case preceding (called ole-veyored) 0 or 1 times per verse and if it occurs with atnah, it is always before the atnah.
• All the other accents are used from 0 to multiple times per verse.

That's a fairly small set of observations. Combinations of accents create musical motifs and phrases. These are potentially infinite, so no wonder it is hard to abstract them  by appealing to sequences of accents.

What are the fundamental disagreements?

• The accents are punctuation. This is a partial truism but of little value.
• Their function has no impact beyond a verse boundary. Provably false. Many examples have been pointed out on this blog and in my books.
• The accents under the text are linked to a scale. True in my opinion. But which scale?
• The accents are hierarchic. This is an entirely confusing concept. A musical phrase is not a hierarchy, it requires all its notes to be contributing to the whole effect.

If the accents under the text are a scale, then there is an implied harmonic substructure to be discovered. The deciphering key inferred by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura shows this underlying harmonic structure. Given a trained musical ear, her selection passes the tonus peregrinus test.

Even given the scale, there is a great deal more to discover about the usage of the accents. Some of what can be discovered is illustrated by the music I have developed and transcribed using the deciphering key inferred by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura. This blog contains enough examples to see the clarity and potential impact of her work.

See also my series on the Ladder or see volume 10 of the translation series, The Progression of the Music. This book lays out motifs and phrases used for every verse of Scripture and shows where they are unique and where they are identical. For an introduction to the deciphering key and the rationale behind it please see The Song in the Night.