Recitation note stories low and high

Low c is never used in the poetry. But it has a role in the prose. It is not heavily used for recitation and allows for only one ornament and that rarely, as noted here in the tarsin table. The low c allows for a full octave leap up or down in the music. As in the Bach Mass in B Minor, where the Sanctus has the octave leap down in the bass part, so also in Isaiah 6, the Seraphim leap an octave down on the word holy -- I am not kidding. But who am I to say that Bach copied the seraphim!

B Minor Mass Sanctus -- octave leap
image thanks to imslp

In Isaiah 6 - where the Sanctus comes from, the seraphim open the music with an octave leap down.

Isaiah 6 verse 3 showing that the Seraphim knew Mr Bach
though the rhythm is different between Hebrew and Latin.

In truth rather than in jest, the leap up from the low c also allows for some cool pickup notes like that in Ruth 1 on Bethlehem in verse 1. I was surprised not to see the octave leap up, but I was thinking of the leap from d to C in these psalms: 23 verse 4 bar 21. You will find similar features in 27:6, 32:5, 68:31, 84:4, 90:10, 106:38 and 48, 123:2, 125:3, 138:2, and 141:4. (See the psalms page to get the links. I find this page so useful, I have stopped using my database to study their forms.) And here we see some usage of the ornaments. Though they are subordinate to the pitch of the current recitation, they help the singer get to the next pitch. Pazer or pazer and zarqa precede the C in the poetry. Some of these are remarkable word painting, like the swallow in psalm 84 and its sudden ascent and descent.

In the prose there are 3 instances of this interval (d C) and up to five ornaments between the two notes. In some ways, the prose is a different world.

Low c is used in 3,063 verses in the prose music. It is followed immediately by low d in the prose as part of the narrative sweep in either the first part of a verse (1,327 times), or the second part of a verse (1,004 times), or when there is no atnah, (205 times). The other 527 times c occurs followed by other notes.

Low d has two accents dedicated to it, the one called galgal is used extensively in the poetry but only 16 times in the prose.

Psalms 31 verse 12 - the longest recitation on a low d. See bar 65 at the link.

In the prose the usual accent for low d is tevir. You can see both used in Jeremiah 13:13. 

Jeremiah 13 verse 13 showing both galgal and tevir in the same verse.

13 And you say to them, Thus says Yahweh, Note me well filling all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings who sit for David on his throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. (1-1)
יג ואמרת֨ אליה֜ם כֽה־אמ֣ר יהו֗ה הננ֣י ממל֣א את־כל־ישב֣י הא֪רץ הז֟את ואת־המלכ֣ים הישבים֩ לדו֨ד על־כסא֜ו ואת־הכהנ֣ים ואת־הנביא֗ים וא֛ת כל־ישב֥י ירושל֖ם שכרֽון	63		ig vamrt alihm ch-amr ihvh hnni mmla at-cl-iowbi harx hzat vat-hmlcim hiowbim ldvid yl-cisao vat-hcohnim vat-hnbiaim vat cl-iowbi iruwlim wicron

Was it deliberate or accidental? Had the composer been interrupted and been working on a psalm and then went back to working on Jeremiah? It could perhaps have been a copying error. Manuscript smudges might make the difference hard to read. The tevir is never found in the poetry. Should the galgal be in the prose?

You be the judge. Here's the section in the Aleppo codex online. I really do wonder about the other 15. Fortunately it doesn’t affect the music.

Jeremiah 13 v 13 galgal on וא֛ת looks backwards
15-138-v_photo at barhama.com

But for now, to postpone the middle tones from e to B, we move to the extreme of the scale. The high C has 584 recitations in the Psalms over 2,738 syllables. A fifth of the recitations are only 2 syllables long. Almost as many are just one syllable - a poke in the musical framework sometimes, and one is 23 syllables long (not shown on the graph). In a psalm! Take a look at verse 5 at the link.

I hear the highest recitation pitch as one that is emotional, from grief to joy. I have noted this for the past several years. That note changed my reading of several passages in Torah. I saw they were not anger but grief. It's been a long time, but I think this is the one I first noticed, and the music changed my reading to agree with a presence I knew as a parent and as a child of a parent.

Deuteronomy 8 - what is the character of the God you know?

11 Keep watch for yourself lest you forget Yahweh your God, so as not to keep his commandments and his judgments and his statutes which I am commanding you today. (1-4-1)
יא הש֣מר לך֔ פן־תשכ֖ח את־יהו֣ה אלה֑יך לבלת֨י שמ֤ר מצותיו֙ ומשפט֣יו וחקת֔יו אש֛ר אנכ֥י מצוך֖ היֽום	15 26		ia hiwmr lç pn-twck at-ihvh alohiç lblti wmor mxvotiv umwpTiv vkuqotiv awr anoci mxvvç hiom

There's much more to say - but I don't yet know what it is.