Sunday, 21 September 2025

A gift to anyone who asks

I have all 929 mscz files available individually in directories for anyone who would like them. If you would like them please let me know: drobertmacd at gmail dot com or message me on Twitter @drmacdonald or threads @bob.macdonald.9063. Let me know why you are interested and any questions you may have.

To use them you need to have MuseScore 4 (download here). When you have these scores, you can see a final product for cantillation in Hebrew, and the raw material for arranging the music in other languages or for other translations than mine, for many instruments, and with chorus, and cantor etc. 

They are a part of the results of 15 years of study and an elapsed year of creation and revision. Each score is derived from the text of the Bible (an eclectic text initially based on the Westminster Leningrad codex with corrections from earlier sources) using a fixed deciphering key as inferred by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura in the last century for the accents in the text called te'amim. It's a brilliant deciphering. Controversial maybe, but don't take my word for it. Try them out. Biblical Hebrew has never seemed so easy to learn. The scores are verse by verse. You can change that by altering the page length.

There is also a set of batch files. These are used only if you want to update the book with changes to the music. The batch file renames the exported individual SVG files to match the image tags in the html for the books. But if you don't have the books, no matter, because the music files are self-explanatory (if you know how to read them). And if you have the books, you may not want to update them anyway. 

I have also included some xlsx files which show patterns of ornament usage by reciting note among other graphs and data tables.

I will have my books available soon somewhere or other place or two. Some people have the generic link already so that it will be unlikely to be lost, even if I never get around to listing them all. The Book of Job is available for sale, and the others may follow this path. 



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