A few musical terms and descriptors

One more introductory section. We need some language to describe the types of phrases that are in the music embedded in the text of the Hebrew Bible.

There are three kinds of verses:

• those that move from tonic to tonic without an internal cadence,
• those that have a single internal cadence,
• and those that have two internal cadences.

The first subdivision of verses into phrases applies to both prose and poetry: 

• how does a verse approach the subdominant, 
• how does a verse return to the tonic.

In the poetry we have to add these:

• how does a verse approach a cadence on the supertonic, 
• how does it continue after a cadence on the supertonic, and
• does its return to the tonic include or exclude the unique accent pair revia-mugrash.

Then for all of the above, we need to note the range, ambitus, and tessitura of the verse.

• for example, e:f#, e:B, d:D and the use of the lower note c for the prose only.

Let's look at a few examples.  

Two verses at random

Are these verses from the prose or poetry? -- They must be poetry because they include the combination revia-mugrash. The top example is an incipit in three different psalms (40, 70, and 89). These psalms begin as if they were the second part of a verse, but they are in fact the whole verse. I was very surprised to find them. 

I will confine further analysis to the psalms since that is where I hope to go in detail.

The second example above has the revia-mugrash pattern on its return to the tonic from a cadence on an ole veyored. It is thus a bi-colon with an internal cadence on the second degree of the scale, the supertonic. Its range is from d# to A, but only touching the A through ornamentation. This long winded name needs a recognizable abbreviation.

Describe this music

This third verse is another example of a bi-colon with an internal cadence on the second degree of the scale. Its range is from low d# to high D#. The phrases are remarkably long. The wide range is characterized by large jumps to the 6th and from there a seventh down to the subtonic, then up a diminished fifth and down again with a sixth. I have to mark the ole-veyored with a breath by hand. I didn't mark this one. Do you still see it?

And describe these phrases

The above is a bi-colon with an internal cadence on the fourth degree of the scale. Its range is e to A. It approaches the tonic from below and returns to the tonic with an ole-veyored via f# and e.

You can see the problem. There is a lot of variety. We have used some terms already: range, ambitus, and tenor. Range and ambitus can differ if we define the ambitus as describing the recitation pitches and allow the range to describe the ornaments as well. Occasionally I use the word low or high tessitura. This is the feel of the impact of tenor and range combined.

For verses we have the descriptors of colon, bi-colon, and tri-colon. If needed in a description, I will qualify a bi-colon with the cadence pitch: f# or A, depending on the cadence that splits the verse.

The first example is a colon, range d:g, ambitus e:f#. Low tessitura.

The second example: bi-colon-f#, range d#:g, ambitus e:f#. Low tessitura.

The third example: bi-colon-f#, range d#:D#, ambitus d#:C. High tessitura.

The fourth example: bi-colon-A, range e:A, ambitus e:A. Low tessitura.

A fifth example: tri-colon, range e:C, ambitus e:C, note bars 7 to 12 are without ornaments.

These terms should help reduce the verbiage in my descriptions of the psalms to come. Notice that a tri-colon always has the harmonic form of tonic, supertonic, subdominant, tonic. 1-2-4-1 for the degrees of the scale. So an equally accurate description for a bi-colon-f# could be 1-2-1, and for a bi-colon-A, 1-4-1. Neither of these, by the way, would describe a musical structure in western music. Western music delights in the tension that arises from modulation to the dominant 1...5...1 and return to the tonic home. Western music specifically rejects the 1-4-1 model because it doesn't create enough tension.

One other term is needed. Plainsong uses the term final for the final note, but in this music, the final is always e, the tonic. The initial note defaults to e if not specified, but often there is an initial note that is not e and it almost always is significant, pointing backward to something already heard. So I may add the initial note name, d through C, where it needs to be pointed out. So the first example above is a g-colon. A single phrase with the verse beginning on g.