The rarer ornaments

Again I have separated the counts between approaching the cadence and returning to the tonic.

in approaching the cadence

• Zarqa occurs 1300 times as part of 621 distinct patterns.
• Tarsin (double geresh) occurs 1060 times as part of 365 patterns often with
• talsha which itself occurs 761 times in 396 patterns.
• shalshelet occurs 11 times in 8 patterns: 4 times in Torah, once in Ezra, once in Isaiah, once in Amos, and 4 times in the three books, twice in Psalms, twice in Proverbs.
• Pazer occurs 580 times in 306 patterns often with tarsin, talsha, and qarne.
• Qarne, the rising form of talsha, occurs 1268 times in 513 sequences.
• Segol 949 in 540.
• Illuy 116 in 31 only in the three books.
• Ole 356 in 66 only in the three books and never after the cadence.

in the return to the tonic

• Zarqa occurs 19 times as part of five distinct patterns.
• Tarsin (double geresh) occurs 582 times as part of 155 patterns
• often with talsha which itself occurs 357 times in 138 patterns.
• shalshelet occurs 35 times always by itself and only in the three books.
• Pazer occurs 187 times in 96 patterns often with tarsin, talsha, and qarne
• Qarne, the rising form of talsha, occurs 500 times in 183 sequences.
• Segol twice only, Exodus 20:5 and Deuteronomy 5:9. I used it also in my coding of Matthew - now at least I would know what pattern to put it in after the cadence.
• Illuy 33 in 4 patterns, only in the three books.

Considering these are occurring in over 23,000 verses, they are all rarely used.

Summary

Supra-linear accent	Before the cadence	After	Books
Zarqa	1300	19	24
Tarsin	1060	582	21
Talsha	761	357	21
Shalshelet	11	35	3
Pazer	580	187	24
Qarne	1268	500	21
Segol	949	2	21
Illuy	116	33	3
Ole	356	0	3
Merkha-Kefula	1	13	21

The Merkha-Kefula (doubled mercha) is not a known symbol for my program. I have in fact interpreted it as a mercha, f (a tevir, d would be more likely and would fit as well or better and be likely from a scribal point of view / ./ // the dot having been lengthened into a slash). It occurs below the text. Same shape as the Tarsin (gershaim) above the text. I have some limited information here. [The very-hard-to-read rules at the end of the appendix could all be tested against the data.]

Note the number of occurrences (except for shalshelet and m-k) is higher prior to the mid-verse cadence than after. The return to the tonic tends to be quicker than the approach to the cadence. As coming down a hill tends to be more speedily accomplished than going up.

Sequences of ornaments

You might have guessed I would try this. What sequences do the ornaments appear in when they are used? It is one thing to count them by type, but it is how they are used together as well as how they are used rarely that will mark their effect on the music. This exercise has also uncovered a dozen or two verses where my data needed adjusting and the music needed updating and I have done this at the shared public locations.

Here is a first table for before the mid point of a verse.

Ornaments	Occurs	Gen	Ex	Lev	Num	Deut	Josh	Judg	1Sam	2Sam	1Kng	2Kng	Is	Je	Ezek
none	3231	420	343	199	329	236	115	114	146	181	144	137	377	255	235
qad,	139	18	11	9	18	8	5	4	6	4	14	5	16	12	9
qad,ger-rev,qad,z-q,	139	13	10	7	18	6	11	8	12	9	9	5	5	12	14
qad,qad,z-q,	614	69	36	28	40	19	30	18	43	27	48	31	92	66	67
qad,z-q,	2028	194	179	131	175	120	59	89	124	91	80	83	319	202	182
qad,z-q,qad,z-q,	214	24	15	18	10	11	9	19	15	8	18	10	10	17	30
qad,z-q,z-q,	165	21	18	12	10	11	5	9	12	8	8	4	10	19	18
rev,	202	20	13	15	21	19	13	9	10	15	16	5	14	16	16
rev,qad,qad,z-q,	210	31	16	12	12	17	13	6	8	10	13	12	17	16	27
rev,qad,z-q,	662	80	51	35	50	44	34	22	40	38	34	35	56	67	76
rev,qad,z-q,qad,z-q,	101	7	6	3	5	5	2	5	6	1	10	8	8	17	18
z-g,	274	49	14	15	24	18	9	7	13	14	15	17	20	26	33
z-q,	844	105	60	48	86	71	30	49	49	39	38	38	78	86	67

Sorry no music. Notation is hard to manage in a table. I have abbreviated all the ornament traditional names. And I have not translated them to musical names.

The traditional names in the above are qadma, geresh, revia, zaqef-qatan, zaqef-gadol. Only these five appear as frequently in sequence - in more than 100 verses in the first 15 books.

• qadma sounds the note above the reciting note and returns to the reciting note, 
• geresh sounds the note a third above the reciting note and returns to the reciting note, 
• revia may be a trill or a mordent starting on the reciting note,
• zaqef qatan is a mordent - sounding the note below the reciting note and returning to the reciting note,
• zaqef gadol goes down the first note and then the second note below the zaqef qatan.

These are how I interpret Suzanne Haik-Vantoura's work. I feel the work on the ornaments is less certain than her work on the signs below the text.

Still - we learn something from this exercise: qadma + zaqef-qatan is a very frequent combination. 

Here are the stats for after the cadence. All the same patterns appear. Note the frequency with which there are no supra-linear signs. This was one of the main reasons that SHV determined that the sublinear signs were more significant than the signs above the text.

Ornaments	Occurs	Gen	Ex	Lev	Num	Deut	Josh	Judg	1Sam	2Sam	1Kng	2Kng	Is	Je	Ezek
none	5177	667	485	414	534	305	220	222	254	218	275	252	434	458	439
qad,	139	6	15	15	10	10	9	7	9	10	6	10	7	18	7
qad,qad,z-q,	671	68	55	34	44	44	28	30	34	36	40	26	103	59	70
qad,z-q,	2249	188	167	116	174	174	75	84	139	88	113	77	355	266	233
qad,z-q,qad,z-q,	116	18	8	6	12	7	3	0	8	9	5	8	11	15	6
qad,z-q,z-q,	114	16	12	6	7	10	3	9	8	6	5	5	7	11	9
rev,	286	18	27	16	29	23	10	5	14	17	33	38	15	27	14
rev,qad,qad,z-q,	167	17	12	7	28	15	6	9	7	8	9	9	15	13	12
rev,qad,z-q,	494	54	44	16	43	31	22	21	32	39	28	29	44	47	44
z-g,	312	49	32	14	43	15	10	14	22	13	11	15	20	25	29
z-q,	1228	161	111	67	82	76	41	59	93	57	79	72	112	117	101

What about the less frequently used ornaments. I have noted in the past how particular words and concepts in a passage are annotated with musical flourishes. The passages highlighting the weapons (sword and stone) with the talsha in the David-Philistine battle are a good case in point. These rarer accents will follow in a subsequent post when I figure out how to present their rarity.

Returning to the Song of Songs - the ornamentation

So - is this combination of double pashta and zaqef qatan in the Song - as if it were 'prophetic'? (which of course it is - and an allegory? - and a reality underlying that allegory? All these -  but not to be entered lightly. As I said in my earlier posts and translation of the Song in 2010 against verse 1

Perhaps in the spirit of the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, we should read the charge of Song 2:7 first. This charge ends four of the five parts of the Song. To read on, we must take on the persona of the daughters of Jerusalem and we are sworn by a hidden name not to rouse love till it please.

I divide the Song into 5 parts,each of the first four ending with the chorus. [See the side bar for my earlier posts.]  Verses are intrinsic to the text and defined by the musical signs, but chapters? - I have no idea why there are 8 chapters in the Song.

In the first part there are 12 occurrences of this motif. When they begin on the tonic there is no zaqef qatan. When they begin on the 6th, there always is. Each of the following snippets should be read in context.

What about part 2? Does this pattern continue? Since I did not include the te'amim when I was first learning Hebrew, I don't know without looking. It turns out there are 6, half the number of the prior part. In Song 2:9, the first is on looking through the windows. In Song 2:14, their is a 20 beat bar containing two of these ornament combinations. Verses 15 is a verse I used for years in my tag line on email - nice to see it represented, and 17 sings of the dawning day. In Song 3:3, the keepers of the city find me, and finally in the chorus, Jerusalem is painted the same way, suggesting that the love the individual finds is not separate from the love that is for Jerusalem. This prophetic motif in the music tells us more than punctuation could.

I suspect parts three, four, and five will be of similar shape. In part 3, the verses are Song 3:5, 4:2, 4:6, 4:9, 4:10, 4:13, 5:3, 5:6.  The ornament does not occur this time on Jerusalem.  (Obviously this is not punctuation and the Wiki comment on double pashta under phonetics is shown to be nonsense. Surely one counter example will do.) Where, O where shall linguists be found (who are also musicians)?

In Parts 4 and 5, the ornaments are on Song 5:15, 6:5, 6:6, 6:8, 7:1, 7:5, 7:6, 7:9, 7:13, 7:14, 8:5, 8:6, 8:8. Perhaps I will continue this by retranslating the Song with the full music - It will be a while. I see that my existing translation is far from well lined up - I have repaired these posts.

But be sure to read this strange poem - really lovely... #bgbg2

Plugging away at ornaments

The paired pashta on consecutive syllables seems to be a particular prophetic motif in the music. The image shows that this pairing is often combined with the single note dip of the zaqef qatan.

It does not occur in the Psalms. In the examples I have so far, I found 13 in Nahum, several in Jonah, several in the Song, where it might represent a kiss (early program music - will come back to this), and in Amos, Esther, and Isaiah. I even note one usage in the Song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2 - showing that these poems in the prophetic books are different in their music from the psalms. The same sign is used in the Psalms, but not in a paired form.

It seems that no serious student of Hebrew is taking note of Suzanne Haik-Vantoura's work. Wikipedia disses it but whoever wrote that probably has not done much analysis or listening.

Some guesses at the reason for ornamentation in the Hebrew Bible

Back to the shalshelet. I have only the Psalms to search at present, but I wondered what the shalshelet would reveal if anything about its use and sense. The word is said to mean a 'chain' and seems clearly related to the number three. Haik-Vantoura interprets it as a three note ornament starting a minor third below the reciting note and rising to the reciting note by semitone. Mitchell considers this unmusical and in his forthcoming volume on the Psalms of Ascent does not transcribe this ornament. Fortunately for him, it occurs only once in the Psalms of Ascent.  I found these 30 uses in the Psalms:

Psalms 3, 7, 10, 12, 13 (twice), 20, 22, 29, 33, 34, 40, 44, 49, 50, 52, 65, 66, 67, 68, 72, 77, 89 (twice), 94, 131, 137, 143 (twice), 146.

Are other ornaments more or less frequent? The shalshelet is the rarest. Others range from three to 100 times its frequency in the data I have so far. The next rarest is the pazer, at 82 occurrences in the psalms. This SHV interprets as a rise to the second and a descent to the reciting note by step within the mode. Then there is the illuy, at 154. She interprets it as a rise to the fifth (much as its similar sublinear sign is the fifth note of the scale). This one tends to the unmusical in some situations - see below Psalm 3:3 which contains two examples both taken at the fourth below. I begin to wonder if the ancients wanted to be able to reach any note without changing the reciting note. This would be a legitimate desire for extending a long harangue till the next down beat.

So back to the shalshelet - does its use reveal anything about what it ornaments? The occurrence in Amos is not an a particularly striking word, yet the ornament definitely draws attention to that word - and he said. Perhaps the 8 sayings on the extended reciting note are also pointing to a uniqueness in Amos and his saying.

The occurrences in the Torah are these, Genesis 19:16, on Lot's lingering, Genesis 24:12, on Laban's saying when he reaches the well, Genesis 39:8; on Joseph's refusal to his master's wife, and Leviticus 8:23, when Moses slew the ram at the consecration of Aaron and his sons.

The only way is to look at them in the Psalms is one by one and decide if the aural pattern surrounds something of significance that is not surrounded by other ornaments. That is a tough question. Thirty examples required. Do they tell us anything about this rare ornament. And if they did, what authority do the ornaments carry? Some consider them late, but Mitchell here argues for a second to third century BCE manuscript tradition.

3:3 רַבִּים֮ אֹמְרִ֪ים לְנַ֫פְשִׁ֥י אֵ֤ין יְֽשׁוּעָ֓תָה לּ֬וֹ בֵֽאלֹהִ֬ים סֶֽלָה׃
7:6 יִֽרַדֹּ֥ף אוֹיֵ֨ב ׀ נַפְשִׁ֡י וְיַשֵּׂ֗ג וְיִרְמֹ֣ס לָאָ֣רֶץ חַיָּ֑י וּכְבוֹדִ֓י ׀ לֶעָפָ֖ר יַשְׁכֵּ֣ן סֶֽלָה׃
10:2 בְּגַאֲוַ֣ת רָ֭שָׁע יִדְלַ֣ק עָנִ֑י יִתָּפְשׂ֓וּ ׀ בִּמְזִמּ֖וֹת ז֣וּ חָשָֽׁבוּ׃

I am wondering if I could combine all the psalm verses that have these into one query?  Trying... It's possible but picky and there is too much information to process in this form (in a blog post by the human eye that is).  A pdf of the lot of them is here. Perhaps there will be clues for the ear. What do they say to us?