My second talk with chatGPT

I am getting to like this robot. It could be very useful for writing posts :). It's a whole lot easier than searching libraries but so far the robot is a little short on specifics. It wrote when I asked: "I am able to adapt and improve over time based on the interactions I have with users. The more I am used, the more I learn from the questions and responses of the people I interact with. However, my learning is not permanent and it is not stored as it is with humans, so if my parameters are updated or reset, I will lose the knowledge acquired during the interactions. Additionally, my learning ability is limited by the architecture and the parameters of the model."

Here is a conversation on follow up questions by me. The feedback from the bot helped me refine my questions. I think this is an essential aspect of clarification of learning. Does it help me formulate probabilities for the application of Bayes theorem to the breakthrough which Haïk-Vantoura developed for the te'amim? What do you get if you ask similar questions to the bot?

Bob: A couple of days ago, you noted that The evidence to support Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" is limited and some scholars argue that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that the accentuation system of the Masoretic texts was used as a musical notation. Would you please tell me which scholars support the theory and which do not.

Bot: I apologize, but I am not able to provide a list of specific scholars who support or do not support Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" as my knowledge cut-off was 2021, and this information may have changed since then. Additionally, the field of biblical studies is vast, and there are many different perspectives and opinions among scholars on this topic. It would be best to consult with academic experts in the field for more specific information and the most up-to-date research on this topic.

Bob: Thank you

Bot: You're welcome. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Bob: What can you tell me about coded compared to analogue musical notations, e.g. solfege (coded do-re-mi) vs modern staff notation (analogue)?

Bot: Coded musical notation and analogue musical notation are two different ways of representing music.

Coded notation, such as solfege, uses a set of specific symbols or words to represent different pitches or notes. In solfege, for example, the notes of the major scale are represented by the syllables "do", "re", "mi", "fa", "sol", "la", and "ti". Coded notation is often used as a tool for teaching and learning music, as it can help to break down the elements of a piece of music and make it easier to understand and analyze.

Analogue notation, such as modern staff notation, uses a combination of symbols and lines to represent different pitches and rhythms. The five lines and four spaces of the staff correspond to different pitches and notes are represented by different symbols such as notes, and rests.

Analogue notation is often more precise and detailed than coded notation, allowing for greater nuance and expression in the music. While it can take longer to learn and read, it can represent much more complex and intricate music.

It's worth noting that both type of notations have their own benefits and drawbacks, and it is not necessarily a case of one being better than the other. It depends on the context and the purpose of the notation.

Bob: Given that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" is a coded rather than an analogue system, what can you tell me about other ancient coded systems for information?

Bot: There are many examples of ancient coded systems for information, from different cultures and time periods. Here are a few examples:

The Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artifact, contains inscriptions in three scripts: hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The inscriptions are the same text, and the Greek inscription served as the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.

The Maya civilization of Mesoamerica developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing that was used to record historical, religious, and astronomical information. The Maya script was deciphered in the 20th century, and it is now understood to be a syllabic script.

The Linear B script was used by the Mycenaean civilization of ancient Greece. It was discovered in the early 20th century and was deciphered in the 1950s. The script is believed to be used primarily for administrative and economic records.

The Enigma machine was a coded machine used by the German military during World War II to encrypt and decrypt messages. The machine was eventually broken by Polish and British codebreakers, which played a significant role in the war effort.

These are just a few examples of ancient coded systems for information, but there are many more examples from around the world. Coded systems have been used throughout history to protect sensitive information or to make it more difficult for others to understand the information being conveyed.

Bob: Please elaborate on the precursors to the modern musical staff notation. How did the analogue system evolve?

Bot: The modern musical staff notation has evolved over many centuries, with several different precursors that led to its development.

One of the earliest known forms of musical notation is the neumes, which were used in the Middle Ages to indicate the general shape of a melody. Neumes were notated above the text of the chant and provided a visual representation of the melody, but did not indicate the exact pitch or rhythm. They were primarily used in religious music, and were used in the Catholic Church to notate the chants of the liturgy.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the system of Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian music theorist, was developed. He used a system of four lines, with the notes represented by the syllables of a hexachord (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la), which later evolved into the solfeggio system. This system was a big step forward as it allowed to notate the melodies with a more precise pitch, but it still didn't indicate the rhythm.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the modern staff notation began to take shape with the development of a system called mensural notation. This system used a five-line staff, with different shaped notes indicating the duration of each note. Additionally, this system introduced the concept of time signatures and barlines, which allowed for the precise notation of rhythm.

It was not until the 15th century with the invention of the printing press that the modern musical staff notation became widespread. The invention of the printing press allowed for the mass production of sheet music, and the modern staff notation was standardized across Europe.

This process was not linear, different regions and schools had different notation systems, and it took centuries for the notation system to be standardized. The development of the modern musical staff notation was a gradual process, shaped by the contributions of many musicians, theorists, and composers over the centuries.

Bob: So solfege followed the development of neumes by a few centuries, but neumes would not work for the annotation of text. It would follow that the mapping of ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la to silluq, merkha, tifha, atnah, munah, mahpakh and ti to galgal (an octave lower), would require both imagination and the passage of time to develop such a system. I wonder what precursors were there the process.

Bot: You are correct that the development of the solfeggio system followed the development of neumes by several centuries. The solfeggio system was developed as a way to notate the pitch of a melody more precisely than neumes, which were primarily used to indicate the general shape of a melody. The solfeggio system used a set of specific syllables, such as "ut", "re", "mi", "fa", "sol", and "la" to represent different pitches.

As for the mapping of the solfeggio system to the Hebrew notation system, it's possible that the process was influenced by the development of the solfeggio system and other musical notation systems of the time. It's also possible that the idea of using a coded system to represent musical pitches was influenced by the use of coded systems in other areas, such as the Rosetta Stone, which used different scripts to represent the same text.

It's worth noting that the deciphering key for the "ta'amei ha-mikra" proposed by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura is a subject of much debate among scholars, and the exact origins and precursors of the system are not well understood. Some scholars have argued that the system was developed by the Masoretes, a group of Jewish scribes who worked on the texts of the Hebrew Bible during the Middle Ages, while others have suggested that it may have been developed earlier. Without clear historical evidence, it is hard to say for sure what precursors were there for the process.

My first conversation with a Robot

 What did it do to me! Here is the conversation: What is gong on behind the scenes?

Explain the deciphering key of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura

Answer: Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura was a French musician and musicologist who proposed a deciphering key for understanding the musical notation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. She argued that the notation in the scrolls represented an ancient form of Hebrew cantillation, a system of chanting used in Jewish liturgical music. Her key proposes that the marks in the scrolls correspond to specific melodic patterns and rhythms, rather than just indicating the vowels in the text. Her work, however, has been met with mixed reactions, with some scholars supporting it and others criticizing it for lack of evidence.

My response: There are a number of problems with your response: 1 - not the Dead Sea Scrolls; 2 - nothing to do with vowels; 3 - you have missed the most important item, the mapping of accents below the text to a modal scale.

Answer: I apologize for the inaccuracies in my previous response. You are correct that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key does not pertain to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but rather to the biblical texts of the Masoretic tradition. She proposed that the system of accentuation used in the Masoretic texts, called "ta'amei ha-mikra" or "trop" in Hebrew, represented a musical notation for chanting the Bible. She claimed that this notation mapped the accents found in the biblical texts to a specific modal scale, allowing the texts to be sung according to ancient melodies. Her work is still debated among scholars and has not yet been widely accepted.

Then I asked: What do you think is the likelihood that the ancient musicians could understand both a scale and a mapping of signs in a text to that scale?

Answer: It is possible that ancient musicians had the ability to understand both a musical scale and a system of signs that mapped the text to that scale. However, it is also important to note that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's deciphering key is still debated among scholars and has not yet been widely accepted. The evidence to support the theory is limited and some scholars argue that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that the accentuation system of the Masoretic texts was used as a musical notation.
It's also worth mentioning that the people in ancient times had a different way of learning, educating and understanding music than we do today. They were not only trained in singing and playing instruments but also in understanding the meaning and context of the text, the culture and tradition of the society and the religious significance of the music. They had a holistic approach to music, thus the possibility of understanding a scale and a mapping of signs in a text to that scale is quite high.

I am trying to figure out who is teaching whom? And what if I taught the bot something - would it incorporate that memory into conversations with others? I was testing to see if I could get it to help me define my likelihoods better.

The ancient musician, an imagination of a story

Imagine yourself back in several eras - say the height of the Solomonic temple c 950 BCE, then during the exile in Babylon c 550 BCE, then after the destruction of the second temple c 110 CE, then during the age of the family of ben Asher c 900 CE, then as a scribe in the 19th century. 

Suppose for instance that your task is to copy these words.

מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִ֑ד יְהוָ֥ה רֹ֝עִ֗י לֹ֣א אֶחְסָֽר

בִּנְא֣וֹת דֶּ֭שֶׁא יַרְבִּיצֵ֑נִי עַל־מֵ֖י מְנֻח֣וֹת יְנַהֲלֵֽנִי

נַפְשִׁ֥י יְשׁוֹבֵ֑ב יַֽנְחֵ֥נִי בְמַעְגְּלֵי־צֶ֝֗דֶק לְמַ֣עַן שְׁמֽוֹ

גַּ֤ם כִּֽי־אֵלֵ֨ךְ בְּגֵ֪יא צַלְמָ֡וֶת לֹא־אִ֘ירָ֤א רָ֗ע כִּי־אַתָּ֥ה עִמָּדִ֑י שִׁבְטְךָ֥ וּ֝מִשְׁעַנְתֶּ֗ךָ הֵ֣מָּה יְנַֽחֲמֻֽנִי

תַּעֲרֹ֬ךְ לְפָנַ֨י ׀ שֻׁלְחָ֗ן נֶ֥גֶד צֹרְרָ֑י דִּשַּׁ֖נְתָּ בַשֶּׁ֥מֶן רֹ֝אשִׁ֗י כּוֹסִ֥י רְוָיָֽה

אַ֤ךְ ׀ ט֤וֹב וָחֶ֣סֶד יִ֭רְדְּפוּנִי כָּל־יְמֵ֣י חַיָּ֑י וְשַׁבְתִּ֥י בְּבֵית־יְ֝הוָ֗ה לְאֹ֣רֶךְ יָמִֽים

You are in the scroll of the psalms, everything is ready for your pen and your thought process. But that text won't do for the period. There would be no vowel markings - so remove them:

מזמ֥ור לדו֑ד יהו֥ה ר֝ע֗י ל֣א אחסֽר

בנא֣ות ד֭שׁא ירביצ֑ני עלמ֖י מנח֣ות ינהלֽני

נפשׁ֥י ישׁוב֑ב יֽנח֥ני במעגליצ֝֗דק למ֣ען שׁמֽו

ג֤ם כֽיאל֨ך בג֪יא צלמ֡ות לאא֘יר֤א ר֗ע כיאת֥ה עמד֑י שׁבטך֥ ו֝משׁענת֗ך ה֣מה ינֽחמֽני

תער֬ך לפנ֨י שׁלח֗ן נ֥גד צרר֑י דשׁ֖נת בשׁ֥מן ר֝אשׁ֗י כוס֥י רויֽה

א֤ך ט֤וב וח֣סד י֭רדפוני כלימ֣י חי֑י ושׁבת֥י בביתי֝הו֗ה לא֣רך ימֽים

What is the likelihood that you would have had cantilation signs in the old Hebrew? At the time when Solomon was ruling, would there have been music in the temple? (Undoubtedly) Would there have been a consistent music annotation scheme? Would they have invented a notation for training new singers? Could it have been as simple as hand-signals like e.g. Egyptian chironomy? The possibility is suggested in 1 Chronicles 16 "On that day then, David chanted as the beginning of thanksgiving to Yahweh, by the hand of Asaph and his kin." (v7)

Perhaps it is too early in the game and the oral tradition is still forming. So flash forward to during the exile. Now music and notation is all around you in Babel. They want to hear your songs. (Ps. 137) Can you make sense of it. Your instructions on copying are with greater care because a tradition was established and has been interrupted. Now everything must be written down, perhaps not vowels yet but certainly the music. You must preserve it until the temple is again hosting services and training singers. You reduce the system of hand-signals to a textual form. You want to distinguish the recitation from the ornamentation, so you put the reciting notes under the text at the accentuation point of the word that marks the change, and the ornaments you affix at their accentuation points above the text. There are about the same number of ta'amei ha-mikra (marks of taste) as there are letters, so the task is not difficult. You are a scribe and a musician. No one would imagine the text separated from its expression by the music. (This is even true of the later ages before our time. - Words without music are bad statutes and misunderstood judgments - Ezekiel 20:25.) 

Anyone who reads from the Bible without a melody
or recites the Mishnah without a tune, to him applies the verse:

And moreover I myself made for them statutes that are not good,
and judgments they will not live in.

R. Yohanen in b. Megilla 32a.

The age of abstraction had not yet arrived.

Flash forward to 110 CE. The temple is again in ruins. Pockets of resistance are still evident especially at Masada. During the time of the Maccabees and the Roman occupation, music has taken second place to the 'meaning' of the text. The music was not transcribed into the Septuagint and the aural tradition was taken for granted so it failed to make it into the hidden scrolls in the desert. Some sects still copied the music, but your group is now worried about the pronunciation being lost, so you invent another coding system for the vowels.

מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד יְהוָה רֹעִי לֹא אֶחְסָר

בִּנְאוֹת דֶּשֶׁא יַרְבִּיצֵנִי עַל־מֵי מְנֻחוֹת יְנַהֲלֵנִי

נַפְשִׁי יְשׁוֹבֵב יַנְחֵנִי בְמַעְגְּלֵי־צֶדֶק לְמַעַן שְׁמוֹ

גַּם כִּי־אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא צַלְמָוֶת לֹא־אִירָא רָע כִּי־אַתָּה עִמָּדִי שִׁבְטְךָ וּמִשְׁעַנְתֶּךָ הֵמָּה יְנַחֲמֻנִי

תַּעֲרֹךְ לְפָנַי ׀ שֻׁלְחָן נֶגֶד צֹרְרָי דִּשַּׁנְתָּ בַשֶּׁמֶן רֹאשִׁי כּוֹסִי רְוָיָה

אַךְ ׀ טוֹב וָחֶסֶד יִרְדְּפוּנִי כָּל־יְמֵי חַיָּי וְשַׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית־יְהוָה לְאֹרֶךְ יָמִים

Let us suppose that the various communities produce copies of the text over the ensuing several centuries, some preserving the vowels, and some where the music is preserved, but the tradition of singing and the understanding is fading. During or leading up to that 10th century, the two traditions combine in the work of the family of ben Asher. What is the likelihood that a scribe at this late date would invent a new system of signs in the 9th or 10th century CE for music? Near zero since no scribe would want to invent anything while copying the Holy Scriptures. What is the likelihood that the two traditions would meet at this time? They seem to have, but I doubt that ben Asher was a musician. If he had been, then the people would have been able to learn from his Sefer Dikdukei ha-Te'amim. (I don't have access to this work).

Fast forward to the 19th century and the scribe Letteris. It astonishes me that in the 1000 years between ben Asher and Letteris, additional annotations are produced during the scribal practice of copying, in particular metegs have been added to some closed syllables to clarify short vowel pronunciations. A musical sign (the silluq) has been commandeered for an additional role. It's a small mess, but it is a mess. And it is clear from contemporary 19th century scholars (Delitzsch, Wickes) that the knowledge of the te'amim is limited and confused.

The mess is somewhat cleared up 150 years later, but the confusion over the meaning of the hand-signals is still evident everywhere. Theologians today believe only in words, and cannot reconstruct tone of voice for the text, and musicians have forgotten the variable reciting note. Only one vestigial tone remains (tonus peregrinus - see the data points here and the brief introduction here). It still remains that Haïk-Vantoura's thesis to restore the variable reciting note based on the analysis of the patterns of usage of the chironomy is written off by musicologists without much thought and with little effort. Musicologist and Theologian alike are in the position of the scientist who is stuck in the prior theory and cannot entertain a change of concept. (Read Thomas Kuhn.)

Here is the music interpreted from the text in our computer age without any human intervention (apart from the decisions of this modern day scribe, the programmer).

[I was just rereading both Haïk-Vantoura's book and David Mitchell's The Songs of Ascents. David's description of a conjectural history on pages 132 ff is well worth reading. Suzanne's book is formative, but it's a bit of a slog to read.]

Data points and the application of Bayes theorem to the Music of the Hebrew Bible

We have the formula for Bayes theorem. It is easily applied if we can agree on the hypotheses and the probabilities of whatever background knowledge we are in possession of. 

A second approach was suggested in the last lecture called 'Inference to the Best Explanation'. The shape of the argument is in this one frame I have borrowed from the lecture by Matthew Joss given March 31 from Australia (7 am), Victoria BC time 1 pm, but organized by Christoph Heilig from Berlin time - 10 pm

IBE - Matthew Joss 2022

D is a collection of data - in this case the Hebrew Bible - all 23,197 verses. 

It will be agreed that a verse is a set of 1, 2, or 3 cola. A colon is a set of words. I define a colon as ending with a rest point, either an atnah, an ole-veyored, or the silluq at the close of each verse. It is possible to extend the definition with some other pausal accents, but only these three are reliable. E.g. a revia or a zaqef-qatan may be used but not all such accents are rest points (disjunctive).

A word consists of letters, vowels, at least one accent, and 0 or more maqaf (hyphens). Two Hebrew words connected by a maqaf is one 'word' (from the point of view of the music). 

So somewhat at random, here is a datapoint:

אִֽם־תִּשְׁכְּבוּן֮ בֵּ֪ין שְׁפַ֫תָּ֥יִם
כַּנְפֵ֣י י֭וֹנָה נֶחְפָּ֣ה בַכֶּ֑סֶף
וְ֝אֶבְרוֹתֶ֗יהָ בִּֽירַקְרַ֥ק חָרֽוּץ

So here we have a verse (Psalms 68:14) consisting of three cola. The first ends with an ole-veyored. These occur only in the poetry books. The second ends with an atnah. Atnah occurs in 21,559 of the verses in D. Atnah never occurs more than once per verse. Similarly the ole-veyored only occurs once in a verse, and if it occurs in a verse with an atnah such as the above, it is always before the atnah. [These are not hypotheses. They are measurements of D and repeatable by anyone.]

For the list of accents, see e.g. this post among others. In the above example:

• Colon 1 has three words, 5 accents, three below the text and 2 above.
• Colon 2 has 4 words, 4 accents, all below the text.
• Colon 3 has three words, 5 accents, three below the text and 2 above.

Notice that some cola have no accents above the text at all. All cola have accents below the text. Those accents below the text number 8 in total for all verses of the 21 prose books and 7 for the poetry verses in the three books. (Job has prose sections - chapters 1, 2, and 42 and the narrator's parts - these use the accents of the 21 books.)

The music for this verse is as follows:

Psalms 68:14

For an explanation as to how I arrived at this, please refer to my book or the many posts on this blog that explain the deciphering key. This is my chief hypothesis H. It is not a data point. It makes use of musical background knowledge and the design of coding systems that are meta-data to the notation. 

It is my thesis that H explains D and explains it better than any other hypothesis.

There are other hypotheses which I have noted in the first post arising from these lectures. One (call it H1) is that current tropes represent some vestiges of the meaning of the accents. Another (H2) is that the accents are a recursive division of a verse into two sections. With both of these it is assumed that the accents are confined in their impact to the current verse. It is H2 that states this rule.

Problems: H1: Current tropes have many variations from place to place and tradition to tradition. Deciding which is original is difficult - in effect there is no place to stand to determine which 'zarqa table' is the most reliable. 

H2: The so called law-of-continuous-dichotomy is simply useless and confusing. Music does not behave this way. Musical lines in a song are related by form a-b-a or a-b-chorus c-d-chorus etc. If the psalms are to be sung, and the accents are musical notation, then such forms should be observed.

In contrast, (H) the deciphering key approach demonstrates repeatedly that the accents do have cross-verse impact and even cross-chapter and multi-book impacts. They form psalms into melodies that show repetition, form, and choruses and define stanzas. Also the deciphering of Psalms 114 In Exitu Israel has a melody that is a variation on one that is still in use today for the same psalm. The tone called tonus peregrinus as used in both the plainsong and the Anglican chant versions is a vestige from the tone that arises naturally from the deciphering key.

The idea of a varying reciting note is the principle that makes the connection. The variation in reciting note is determined simply from the 7 or 8 accents that are used below the text. This provides a place to stand for the analysis of the songs and prophecies throughout the Scripture.

The final post in the ladder series has a summary of the 'best explanation'. The principle of Ockham's razor can be applied: it is futile to do with more what can be done with fewer symbols, and the best explanation is one that explains more of the usage of the patterns of the symbols. 

Comparing H and H1 with discussion of each of the background data issues would be a useful exercise. Let each hypothesis start at 50%, then consider each of the analyzed points, assign likelihoods, and see if Bayes factors prefer one over the other. I have no doubt that they will. For a basic intro to the music with aural examples see this popular post.

Background knowledge - music and cosmology

In the latest dialogue on the application of Bayes theorem to historical analysis, the idea of background knowledge came up. I would like to come up with a real application of Bayes theorem to certain theses about history but I don't want to apply probabilities to things that are generally known or accepted since the degree of uncertainty does not support applying a probabilistic approach. Yet I am aware that what we seem to know is not really fully known, as if that sort of knowledge was even possible.

The mechanics of ninety-five percent of the matter and energy that we seem to be aware of is actually unknown to us and goes by the name of dark. It has to be there for what we see as stars and galaxies to 'hang together' but we can't say what it is. It is 'dark' to us. What makes us think that in the area of background knowledge we actually know anything?

When it comes to background knowledge in music, (this being the subject of the set of hand-signals embedded in the text of the Aleppo codex and all texts of Tanach copied since then in the world I know about,) I know if I know anything about musical line, or shape, or beauty, or tonality, I know at least three things: sequences of vibrations (notes) that lead to the idea and feeling of rest, sequences that lead to a feeling of incompleteness, and groups of such sequences, musical phrases and structures, that lead to surprise and delight.

Both cosmology and music are based on the concept of wave, or the vibration of particles, strings or voice or pipes. Waves operate within a field. The field of music for a particular performance (roughly speaking) encompasses time and space within audible limits. What happens to us as performer and listener when we take part in this field? Do we become part of the music of the spheres? (Just askin'.)

More seriously, what background knowledge can we assume for ourselves and for our ancestors within the tradition of Biblical Studies? Some few of you will know that I created a survey on survey-monkey - much too expensive a tool - $40 a month to use it for surveys with more than 10 responses. I only did the free bit. My questions were simple - here are the results:

20% of respondents included Musician as a role

More readers of music than I might have thought

This is far too few responses to even guess at a trend. Personally, I expect the musicians in the churches compared to those who concentrate on 'the word' without music (a fearful error) is about 5 in a 100. But there is a significant musical background within the religious world, perhaps even more in other traditions than in the Judeo-Christian circles such as I inhabit.

I know that string vibrations were investigated up to 3000 years ago. It's too big a study for me to summarize, but there is no ignorance of the octave 2/1, or the fifth 3:2, or the fourth 4:3, or the scale divided into roughly 7 or 8 steps, or instruments tuned to play a scale in ancient times that we would recognize today. You can get in as deeply as you like with a search. The musicologists and the mathematicians leave me behind quickly.

In short, I am not surprised that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura found a 7 note scale for the poetry books in the accents, and a compatible 8 note scale in the prose books. I am also not surprised that she postulates that the pausal accents under the text allow for cadences (the sense of resting) on the fourth note of the scale and on the second note as well in the poetry books. (For more, see my book on the music and the series of posts on this blog under the title, the ladder.)

The general sense of the music found restores the tone of voice in a way that is immediately recognizable by a modern hearer. It changes our attitude to the words and our sense of who was able to design such a coherent and efficient system. The information embedded in the system is as significant for us as it was for them. They were like us, lovers of beauty, recognizing transcendence, and able to design a notation that would stand the test of time.

I can accept this assumption of background knowledge even if I am only 5% sure that I exist in a musical field. Maybe the darkness of the matter and energy that surround me is vital to my soul.

Two directions for the new semester

A two week break - almost. Not that there was much free time anyway. Now I will leave reading Delitzsch for a while longer. The next few weeks I will concentrate on two things: Bayes theorem and the formation of plausible hypotheses - the background knowledge and how it impacts perception. And the spec for translating the te'amim from Unicode to MusicXML - that is for a potential new app that could be online - without my having to put my whole system online! 

Blessings to all listeners and readers. Get with the music.

Also Please fill in my very simple anonymous Survey - thanks to the survey monkey site. I am curious to know how many students of the Bible are musicians and what their level of musical skill is. Two quickly answered questions which I will eventually put into a database for correlation analysis.

Bayes theorem and the interpretation of the te'amim

I watched several lectures on Bayes theorem - too bad it wasn't this much fun to study when I was in school 56 years ago and taking probability theory.

I wonder if probabilities even apply, but the idea is that one makes a hypothesis and asks what is the probability it is true given some new evidence.

On the subject of the te'amim, there have been several hypotheses. That the te'amim are: 

1. Punctuation.
2. Hierarchic and recursively dividing the phrases in two.
3. Musical signs whose form and meaning have been lost.
4. Musical signs that have a deciphering key that is decidable based on the evidence arising from the results of using it.

Which hypothesis is most likely to be true?

The evidence. 

• For 1. Ask Victor Borge. There are too many symbols (24+) for them to be punctuation. 
• For 2, there are theories over the last 1000 years of writing culminating in Wickes's law of continuous dichotomy - they are all without exception as obscure as the Ptolemaic universe and as full of contradictions. They are counter-intuitive as part of a sequential text. This so-called 'law' should be utterly forgotten. It is crippling.
• For 3. This is undoubtedly partly true. The variety and lack of consistent usage of the signs in Synagogues is evident. 

I vote for 4 since the deciphering key of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura has considerable supporting evidence in my view. 

1. It is clearly defined in a few pages.
2. It is consistently interpreted in sequence, suitable for sight reading of the music, and supports a predictable musical line.
3. Beauty and expressivity are the result.
4. The theory is an efficient use of the evidence in the signs themselves - agreeing with the principle of Ockham's razor.
5. A musician can develop and arrange a piece based on the derived melodies.
6. It is a different tonality than music of the past 500 years.
7. The music allows variety of modality and is suitable for ancient and modern instrumental accompaniment.
8. It complements and interprets the text, and reveals the tone of voice.

The above are evidentiary support for the theory of SHV's key. Challenge - apply Bayes theorem.

As the application of isospin to the particle zoo revealed the theory of quarks, so the application of statistical and musical inference to the zoo of signs over and under the text in the Tanach reveals the music embedded in them. The system effectively divides the problem space and shows us how to explain the 16,689 distinct sequences of accents. (See my series on 'the ladder'.)

The frequency of syllables per reciting note for the 3 poetry books
plotted for lengths of 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 syllables.
(The low c only appears in the prose chapters of Job.)

The frequency of syllables per reciting note for the 21 prose books
plotted for lengths of 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 syllables.

• What is the likelihood that there were musicians in the ancient world like us - designers, singers, aware of tonality, physicists experimenting with string tension and length? (Yes - there were.) 
• What is the reliability of aural transmission of melodies? (It's quite low.) 
• What is the likelihood that the Masoretes would invent a notation? (Not likely.)

Challenge - develop the social statements, theses, and probabilities that would allow the application of Bayes theorem?

For an introduction to the music, see my book, The Song in the Night. See the examples of the music  on this blog here and here.