Reading the Music in the Hebrew Bible

It’s almost impossible to describe music. But we have ways of writing down the music that can be described. During my lifetime as a chorister, I learned slowly over many years to read notes from a staff. There are five lines and you can put notes on the lines and in the spaces and even on ledger lines written in above or below the lines of the staff. The staff is governed by a clef. The clef determines the notes that are represented by the lines and spaces on the staff. I use the treble or g-clef. The clef is placed such that the curl in the middle surrounds the first line from the bottom and defines the place of the note we name g.

Perhaps you remember the words that we boys memorized to fix the note names of the lines in our minds: every good boy deserves fudge. Pretty silly and gender biased, but that's where we came from. And the spaces spell f-a-c-e! We were all learning to sight read whether by voice or on an instrument. I wonder why I never used this sort of technique to learn to sight read other clefs.

The default starting pitch for the music embedded in the Bible is the note /e/ to be sung at whatever octave is comfortable for the singer. If the singer has a lower voice, the pitch can be lowered.

Below is a score containing the opening verses of Psalm 80. I have used a key signature of 4 sharps. It looks like E major but the high C will be consistently flattened. Note values are indeterminate. The pulse is taken from the word rhythm in prose, and the syllable rhythm in poetry. Ornaments highlight words in a musical phrase, sometimes inviting a breath from the singer, and sometimes not.

Psalm 80 verse 1

I have used dotted bar lines to show that the rhythm is irregular and subject to the singer. In this first verse, there are 6 bars, the first containing two notes, the second five, and so on. In the third bar, the // signifies a pause of indeterminate length. The symbol in the last bar after the last note is a rest. This allows the eye to see the end of a verse more clearly. Yes the notes are quarter notes, crotchets in the British terminology, and the rest is a quarter note rest, but there is no specific time value to any of them in this music.

Read individual words in the text right to left. Words themselves are left to right and placed over the note they apply to. Everything else is left to right. Occasionally in a score, I will underlay an English lyric below the Hebrew. Many different musical possibilities open up to translations as lyrics. For example, the short five-verse text of Isaiah 12 lends itself to a 6/4 rhythm in English. Many other examples will be found by those who research the musical possibilities.

Psalm 80 verse 2

Compare these two verses with the original hand written work by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura. She uses a custom notation. The white notes with tails show the syllable holding the accent. Her notation is also one where no specific duration values are intended. Both standard and custom notations imply a recitative in speech rhythm for prose. Strong syllabic rhythms will be heard in most psalms.

The non-standard notation of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura

She also uses a different mode. There’s nothing in the Hebrew that tells us what the key signature or the mode should be. At least, there’s nothing we’ve found so far.

Here is the text and the score!

1 For the leader. On lilies. A testimony of Asaph, a psalm.
א למנצ֥ח אל־ששנ֑ים עד֖ות לאס֣ף מזמֽור	8 7		a lmnxk al-wownim ydut lasf mzmor
2 ♪~ Shepherd of Israel give ear, driving Joseph like a flock, sitting on the cherubim, shine.
ב ר֘ע֤ה ישרא֨ל האז֗ינה נה֣ג כצ֣אן יוס֑ף יש֖ב הכרוב֣ים הופֽיעה	15 8		b royh iwral hazinh nohg cxan iosf iowb hcrubim hopiyh

The Hebrew in square text above is the actual score as it is written in the Hebrew cantillation signs of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. I have eliminated the vowels so the cantillation signs stand out. You can trace exactly the impact of each sign on the score. There are no ornaments in the setting of the inscription (verse 1), so the role of the signs under the text is very evident. The music can be read directly from the Hebrew once the singer can associate the reciting notes and ornaments with each of the signs. Here is a blow by blow description -- almost as simple as Do Re Mi.  Where is Julie Andrews when I need her!

למנצ֥ח lmnxk – start on e, move to f on the syllable xk.

אל־ששנ֑ים al-wownim – continue on f, move to the resting note A on nim.

עד֖ות ydut – continue on A, move to g on dut.

לאס֣ף lasf – continue on g, move to B on sf.

מזמֽור mzmor – continue on B, close on the tonic e on the syllable mor.

Verse 2 continues with the reciting note on the tonic, but the opening note starting on a note below the tonic connects the verse to something that has preceded it. I did not make this idea up from thin air. It is simply an observation based on hundreds of examples I have seen. We will see many examples of this kind of connection. They are on every page of the music of the Bible. In this case it may be the inscription, particularly the word wownim (lilies) that was on the resting point in verse 1.

ר֘ע֤ה royh – ornament the first syllable (take your time and remember you are singing on lilies). On the second syllable, move to C.

ישרא֨ל iwral – continue on C and ornament the last syllable al.

האז֗ינה hazinh – continue on C and ornament the second syllable zi.

נה֣ג nohg  – continue on C, move to B on hg.

כצ֣אן cxan – continue on B, the word accent is on the second syllable - no change in recitation pitch but the accent shows accentuation also when needed.

יוס֑ף iosf – continue on B, and move to A, the rest note on sf.

יש֖ב iowb – continue on A, move to g on wb.  

הכרוב֣ים hcrubim – continue on g, move to B on bim.

הופֽיעה hopiyh – continue on B, close on the tonic e for the last two syllables piyh.

You may have noticed that there are differences between the text that Haïk-Vantoura is using and the older Leningrad codex. She has a mark on al-wownim that returns her to the tonic. And a similar mark in verse 2 drags the melody to the tonic on hazinh. These are errors in the 19^th century text that she was using. But it’s clearly the same song. We will see this technical problem and others as we proceed.

The above description raises a question about automated transcription. It might be easier to use a recitative format and not resolve every syllable in the Hebrew. This would make easier sight reading for some audiences. Arabic hymn books make use of a right to left music staff. This technique could make for a complete right to left Hebrew rendition. 

I have chosen the detailed syllabic approach for the Hebrew lyrics with additional text lines for translation below and original Hebrew above right to left by letter, and left to right by word.

I have not used every mark in the Hebrew manuscripts. In particular, Haïk-Vantoura does not consider the pesiq to be relevant to the music. It may be useful to emphasize word separation, but it has no other purpose. I keep my eye on them just in case, but many of them are additions to the MS over the last 10 centuries and I have seen none so far that have any serious impact. (More detail on the pesiq here if you want to do the research.)