Continuing to learn

Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura mentions somewhere, as I recall, her surmise that students of the music would have had extensive training in the music over a period of years. It takes elapsed time to learn the music, and to learn to sing. This goes beyond looking at a master table of accents and the memorization of shapes. We need to recognize by both seeing and hearing.

I have noticed as I try and consolidate all that I have done with this tradition over the past 14 years that there has been marginal improvement in my reading. How well are you doing?

Here is a quiz:

Part A -- accents

משכ֗יל לא֫ס֥ף  

1. how many accents are above the text in this example? 
2. how many below?
3. what is the name of the first accent? what is its shape? (reference here)
4. what is the name of the second accent? 
5. what is the name of the third accent? (reference here)
6. what is the pair of accents on the second word (reading right to left) called
7. what are the notes? 
8. can you sing them? Do you recognize the words. 

Part B -- verses

1. how many cadences can there be within a verse?
1. - minimum
2. - maximum
2. distinguish 1-2-1 from 1-4-1. (reference here)
3. what books allow a verse to have a tricolon form with two inner verse cadences, a form to which I have assigned the abbreviation 1-2-4-1.
4. what note does a verse start on?
5. what note is the final for a verse?

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Answers: 

Part A

1. 2
2. 1
3. revia, it is similar to a mordent. In the poetry, it is -1, 0. In the prose, it is 0, -1.
4. ole, it is only used in the poetry books
5. merkha
6. ole-veyored 
7. e d#-e a-e f# (see further on B3 below)
8. the words are the first two words of Psalm 78

First two words of Psalm 78:1

An insight of Asaph

Part B

• 1a - 0 is the minimum number of inner cadences.
• 1b - 2 is the maximum number of inner cadences. If there are 2, the first is on the supertonic, f#, the second is on the subdominant, A.
• 2
• 1-2-1 is an abbreviation for the harmonic structure of a bi-colon where the inner cadence for the verse is on the supertonic (the second degree of the scale).
• 1-4-1 is an abbreviation for the harmonic structure of a bi-colon where the inner cadence for the verse is on the subdominant (the fourth degree of the scale).
• 3 The cadence on the second degree of the scale only occurs in the poetry books, Psalms, Proverbs, and the speeches of Job. 
• 4 In the entire Hebrew Bible, all verses begin on the tonic e as a default unless some other accent, either over or under the text modifies the opening pitch.
• 5 The final note for a verse is the tonic. Every verse has a final cadence.