Proverbs as an example of the music for poetry

It's a long story to talk about prose and poetry in Hebrew. The first thing to note is that the te'amim, the accents above and below the text that are cantilation signs, are divided into two sets: those for the three books, Psalms, Proverbs, and the speeches of Job, and those for the other 21 books of the Hebrew Bible and the prose sections of Job, chapters 1, 2, and 42 from verse 7 to the end, and as well, each of the single phrase introductions to the speeches by the narrator. These three books are called poetic. This post is about the observable differences in the music of the three books.

Only in the three books do we find the combination accents ole veyored and revia mugrash. The lowest reciting note c (darga) of the 21 books does not occur in the poetry of the three books. And there are six ornaments that occur only in the 21 books, the double geresh (or tarsin ב֞), zaqef qatan (upright small ב֔), zaqef gadol (upright big ב֕), segol (bunch of grapes ב֒), and the two horns, qarne farah (both horns together), telisha (detached ב֩) qetanah/gedolah (ב֠).

Putting aside these preliminaries, I have here a thought or two about the musical lines in the poetry. I will skip the process of underlay here. This post has a different purpose from refining my translation for lyrics (as if that were even possible!).

I need you to hear. I had dictated this into my phone with singing, but I destroyed the recording while editing. It does need to be sung and heard so that you can distinguish the fourth note of the scale from the fifth or the octave (that interval does not exist in the three books!). And so you can hear the tone of the message.

One of the chief characteristics of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key for the te'amim is the mid-verse cadence on the atnah -- this is a mid-verse recitation note on the sub-dominant. It would be highly unusual for a 20th century musician to consider this as suitable for the mid point of a musical form. The music of the last 4 centuries has been an exploration of the move from tonic to dominant, modulating to create tension in the middle of a piece that sets up a longing for the return to the tonic at the end of the piece. The recitation to the sub-dominant doesn't set up such a tension. It is a cadence that allows a sense of rest. Recitation on the sub-dominant after the atnah often carries the sense of rest further. Here is the first such note in Proverbs 1:1a:

Proverbs - the opening notes.

The tonic is e. -- Not as if it were fixed but it is generally convenient for the human voice. Raise or lower the tonic for the individual singer as necessary. Notice that the book of Proverbs starts on a g (tifha is the accent name - it is always the third note of the scale). This connects the book of Proverbs as a continuation of the Psalms which is itself a commentary on Torah and Prophets. Psalms, Proverbs, and Job all start on a note other than the tonic. They with Deuteronomy and The Song are the only sections of Scripture that do not have e as the opening reciting note.

Sing those three notes -- imagine e as your home base, but go up the third to g (natural in this mode) then to the fifth (the dominant - signified by the accent munah), then to the mid point cadence on the syllable vid. We of course use the dominant as a note in a phrase, but we don't come to a cadence in it as modern music might. The idea of cadence in another 'key' is foreign to the Biblical recitation. The movement to the subdominant (atnah) is not a modulation. (Though if I am arranging such melodies, I do allow such a treatment occasionally.)

The second part of this verse returns to the tonic. As is common in the poetry, the pair of accents revia-mugrash above the text occurs as part of the return. It occurs 2,839 times in the 4,442 verses of the three books that use the poetic te'amim. It is always in the last part of the verse. The verse structures will be repetitive, but there is much variation in tone, in emotion, in ornaments, and so on throughout the forms that will be encountered as the study continues.

The first two verses of Proverbs

Notice the similarity and the difference between the shapes of the two verses. In all three of the poetry books, this pattern and variations will be evident. [The g in melek is an accident - a bug in an old program that I have never noticed till now - when the melisma is over 4 notes, the usual sharpening is ignored.]

Several verses in the three books are tri-cola, having two mid-verse cadences. There are arguments for tri-cola in the 21 books as well, but no verse in any of those books hase a second significant cadence on the supertonic. If a verse in the poetry has two cadences, the one on the second step of the scale always precedes the one on the 4th step of the scale. A cadence on the second step is always preceded by the ole, an ornament to which Haïk-Vantoura assigns a leap of the fourth. E.g. in Proverbs 1, these three verses from 21-23.

Three verses in a row that use the ole-veyored coming to a cadence on the supertonic.

Bars 99 to 103 express a verse that is a bi-colon, having one cadence only on the supertonic. Bars 103 to 109 illustrate a tri-colon with cadences on the supertonic and the subdominant. Similarly bars 110 to 116.

Similarity of accent sequences (= melodic line shape) is very easy to see and hear with Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key. It is also easy to learn to sight-read this notation.

A claim was made to me that the poetry books differ from each other. I doubt this, but it is a question that statistics would confirm or deny with some degree of confidence.

Getting to the atnah (A) - the Psalms have greater variety of phrase as seen in the table below. These are phrases getting to the atnah with a frequency of use greater than 10 times in the book. 

Read it this way as you sing the note sequence: The first line of the table: Munah atnah in accents occurs 13 times in the Psalms and not at all in the other two books. The second line: B-g-B-A Munah-tifha-munah-atnah occur in all three books, 42 times in psalms, 72 in Proverbs, and 16 in Job. The seventh line: Silluq munah atnah occurs 329 times in psalms and 92 times in Proverbs and 181 times in Job. And so on. Given the length of the books, it seems to me that all the accent combinations are used in each book, and there is no significant difference in the composers' use of the differing phrases.

In volume 10, The Progression of the Music of my series, the Hebrew Bible and its music, you will find every phrase and can examine this data at your leisure.

Psa	Pro	Job	Accents
13			B-mun A
42	72	16	B-mun g-tif B-mun A
19	21		B-mun g-tif A
33	13	20	C-mph B-mun A
22		14	C-mph B-mun g-tif B-mun A
12			C-mph B-mun g-tif A
329	92	181	e-sil B-mun A
211	162	91	e-sil B-mun g-tif B-mun A
185	64	71	e-sil B-mun g-tif A
21			e-sil B-mun g-tif e-sil A
34		11	e-sil C-mph B-mun A
28			e-sil C-mph B-mun g-tif B-mun A
20			e-sil C-mph B-mun g-tif A
13			e-sil C-mph e-sil f-mer A
20			e-sil C-mph f-mer A
23			e-sil C-mph g-tif B-mun A
11			e-sil d-gal f-mer g-tif B-mun A
290	79	110	e-sil f-mer A
37	14	15	e-sil f-mer e-sil A
16			e-sil f-mer g-tif B-mun A
139	105	112	e-sil g-tif B-mun A
20		13	e-sil g-tif A
13			e-sil g-tif f-mer A
320	118	156	g-tif B-mun A
13			g-tif e-sil B-mun A