The explanation of inference

We are inference engines. That's the whole we and the individual 'I' in the we also. We do this inferring alone and we do it together under the influence of each other and of us all altogether. We are one body.

It takes both the good and the evil to infer truth. The best feedback I have had on the interpretation of the musical signs in the Old Testament has been negative: you don't know what you are talking about. I cannot commend you. Haik-Vantoura did not know much about the accents. Tradition does not interpret them her way.

Well _: best-be- _.)loved  it's a _/ good thing _\ that she _> didn't _^ know
be - ^v cause she ^< wouldn't have been _\ able to _/ do her _| work.

We are inference engines. The whole we, and the individual 'me' and 'thee'. And there is a Mysterious source of negative entropy that is in the input to our inferring. And we are also in that Source of negative entropy. Google 'source of negative entropy' for my source of this phrase. It is from the father of operations research, Stafford Beer, author of The Brain of the Firm.

Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura - who is she? What influenced her thinking? Certainly not the traditional explanations of the accents in the Hebrew Bible. No - the good in her influence was her father, and her teacher, Marcel Dupré. The evil was the exile she had to endure during the war years. The result of her work and thinking over several decades was the presentation of a coherent interpretation of the signs of the Hebrew text.

It is not the only possible solution, I am sure, but it is infinitely clearer than the traditional solutions to our ignorance on this subject. (See for instance this post on Proverbs 2.)

There is one sure and objective thing that she noted in her careful work. That there are signs below the text and signs above the text.

In Hebrew tradition, the books of the Bible are divided into two groups based on the systems of signs that are used. There are 21 books in the first group (36 if you count all the books separately) and 3 books in the second group (Psalms, Proverbs, and Job). Strictly speaking Job uses both sets of signs, the signs of Psalms and Proverbs in the speeches, the the signs of the 21 books in the Narrator's parts, chapters 1, 2, 42, and the single verse introductions to the speeches.

The Wiki article above explains quite well what she noticed, not being prejudiced by the traditional explanations: that there are 8 signs below the text in the 21 books and 7 in the three. [It is not true that she focused only on the 21 books (and I am not going to fix the article)].

That there are signs below and above the text is ignored by tradition. That is incomprehensible to me. How could you miss such a carefully constructed distinction in a corpus of 304,646 or so words in 929 chapters?

The important note to me is that she approached the text first as a musician. The signs then became for her, gradually over many years, transparent in meaning, because of the melodies that they implied.

Her work is by no means complete. She suggested many possible modes in the music but could not, because of time constraints, specify them all. And who knows what more there is to discover in the way these notes define the meaning of the text?

O beloved inference-engines with whom I work, O Body of Life,
How will we work together to explore the many aspects of this art-song that is the Bible?

See the music page for the links to all 929 chapters of the Hebrew Bible.

The song of the inference engine

Bob-_\bie, _^Bobbie ^\How ^*will _/you explain this _|Music

Music and text don't go together easily. We are taught as children to speed read and we learned to go so fast we don't remember much at all.

There are techniques to slow us down, like poetry. But the speedy are impatient.

Our bodies are inference engines. We infer knowledge and information from pondering and being still as well as from going faster, higher, and stronger. Perhaps we should sit very still for a moment. We should come to a rest. We should enter into that rest.

Why should you stop there for a moment?

Because I love you.

Why did you rest on that word?

Because I love you.

OK, OK enough slop. What's to learn - get on with it.

Learn fast how to slow down. Look back at that first sentence and I will explain. It is a simple tune. We start on Mi (Doh Re Mi). Always on that note - take it as given. In a sense it is the real tonic. And for convenience I will let it be the note, E, two notes above Middle C on the piano, or the traditional lower and upper string note of the guitar.

Notice there are two classes of signals in that first line - those below the letters and those above the letters. Altogether there are 6 signs in the music.

The left-leaning slash \ (once below the text and once above)
The hat ^ (once below the text)
The asterisk or star * (once above the text)
The right-leaning slash / (once below the text)
and the vertical line | (once below the text)

If a sign is below the text, it indicates a change in the reciting note. If a sign is above the text it indicates an ornament of some sort.

In the above case the reciting notes are E (the default start - mi mi mi mi), then G _\ (sharpen it if you like) then A, _^ a point of rest. The ornament leaves and returns to the reciting note. There are two ornaments on 'how-will' and they might be C-A, and G#-A, then the music changes note to an F# _/ and finally it returns to the E _|.

If a sign is below the text, it indicates a change in the reciting note. If a sign is above the text it indicates an ornament of some sort.

These signs are an encoding of the text to teach you how the music is formed. Now how did we get there - to this interpretation of the signs. I will try to give you some indication in my next post.

See the music page for the links to all 929 chapters of the Hebrew Bible.

Setting the framework conversation in Job

I am testing again the thesis that individual verses of the Bible are unrelated to each other with respect to the music (from Wickes 1881) as noted in an earlier post. "Logically, a verse may be closely connected with the one preceding or following it; but musically and accentually no such connection exists." This a false thesis. Individual verses are clearly "musically and accentually" related over a wide range within the context of stories, books, and sections of the text. Here is another illustration that shows we should read the music of the text from the beginning.

Job is a series of conversations from chapter 3 to 41. Each conversation is introduced by a phrase. The music shows that each conversation is a response to Job. It could have been just a repetition of a standard bit of punctuation - but it is not. And the narrator (using the accents from the 21 books) has ample scope for singing a suitable tone of voice as each of the three friends responds to Job (the conversations themselves being with the poetic accents of the three books).

Have a look. Note too how Job's initial conversation has an elaborate introduction. Yahweh's introduction in chapter 38 is quiet compared to Job's introduction in chapter 3. Then note how the narrator's introduction of Job always goes from tonic to tonic, whereas the introduction to the three friends' response always begins on the third and descends to the tonic. There are no resting points in any of these verses. Also note that Elihu's introductions are exactly equivalent to Job's. Make of it what you will - but this is not an answer beginning on the third, rather it is more like the introduction to an addendum which Job himself might have sung.


All the chapters of Job are here in their musical form.

Agnus Dei

Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these ...

ye did it not, to me

REB: Truly I tell you, anything you failed to do for one of these, however insignificant, you failed to do for me.

This is the judgment of the nations. Matthew 25:32

Saunders on Immigration and Refugees

Don't miss this article. Especially those who are hard-core Xenophobics. Fear never wins. As Elizabeth Renzetti said in her own piece this morning "There’s a gap in the future. We’ll never know what we’ve missed, today or two generations from now."

Approaching the rest, an analysis

In the three books, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, here is how often the mid point rest of a verse is approached from tifcha to atnach. 1,612 times. And without the tifcha 2,635 times,

In the '21 books', here is how often the mid point rest of a verse is approached from tifcha to atnach. 17,199 times. And without the tifcha only 54 times. Perhaps this is why the default tone that Haik-Vantoura chose is what it is.

It is no wonder that the simple rule quoted by de Hoop that tifkha precedes atnach is hard to express. First it is only in the 21 books that we would suggest this thesis and there we would break it a few times. So it is rare but not impossible to approach the mid point rest without a tifcha.

In music this is getting to the A without a G#. It happens in the 21 prose books of the Bible 15 times - I could cite them all: Deut 11:27, 24:10, Exodus 4:10, 33:14, 33:18, Genesis 15:8, 18:3, 19:7, 24:34, 30:28, 34:31, 35:5, 44:6, Leviticus 8:19, 22:19 - all in the Torah.

You can look at them, but don't trust the translation. Who is trying to keep you in place? Come now someone who know better than I and tell me why this example is translated with IF, IF, rather than THAT, IF? Why - because people know that God is a horror to be appeased. Such a lie.

אֶֽת־הַבְּרָכָ֑ה
אֲשֶׁ֣ר תִּשְׁמְע֗וּ אֶל־מִצְוֺת֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם הַיּֽוֹם

This has the remarkable property that the first word is the first half of the verse. It reads to me

A blessing, [There is a rest on this important word - pause!]
that (אֲשֶׁ֣ר) you might hear the commandment of Yahweh your God that (אֲשֶׁ֣ר) I command you today.

The path to the rest is direct from e to A musically. To obey / to hear / is to have rested!

then verse 28 is a long and tortuous route to the rest: from e to the octave above C then B then back to e then B then down a major seventh to c d f g(#) and finally to the rest on A. This verse has the word if you do not (אִם־לֹ֤א) in it. It is a warning. But the first verse of the pair, verse 27 is a down payment and it is not conditional - except in English translations!

וְהַקְּלָלָ֗ה אִם־לֹ֤א תִשְׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל־מִצְוֺת֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֔ם וְסַרְתֶּ֣ם מִן־הַדֶּ֔רֶךְ אֲשֶׁ֧ר אָנֹכִ֛י מְצַוֶּ֥ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם הַיּ֑וֹם
לָלֶ֗כֶת אַחֲרֵ֛י אֱלֹהִ֥ים אֲחֵרִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא־יְדַעְתֶּֽם

And I would not render this word as a curse but rather as a Denial. (See my Deuteronomy 28). I am not ready for this.

A denial if you do not hear the commandment of Yahweh your God and you turn aside from the way that I have commanded you today [There is a rest on this word - Pause - You are there as long as it is called today! You know this.]
to go after other gods that you do not know.

There a complex simplicity here in that word 'know' that I have not got the information for to put it into words. The blessing is the knowledge and the knowledge is one of deep care - and other Elohim (gods) do not have the knowledge that is in Yahweh God (Elohim).

Fighting over it, in a sectarian way, will not do of course. But if we learn to sing these verses maybe we will get the point and be healed.

I got distracted - there are hundreds of ways in which A is approached via g. More later. (Hundreds in the 21 books). And hundreds of ways in which it is approached without the g - in the three books.

Sequences of accents in the Hebrew Bible

It has come to my attention from both Jacobson and other writers that there is a pairing of accents in their theory of how they work. Possibly this is true, but it is better I think to ask another question. In how many ways can one approach a cadence? (For them, to be fair, they speak in terms of relative length of pause, a concept similar to a cadence.)

I read for example, the claim here by Raymond de Hoop who seems to have written extensively on the accents, this sentence: So, for example, an atnach is preceded by tifcha; zaqef is preceded by pashta, etc. And he presents Exodus 15:3 as his text:

יְהוָ֖ה אִ֣ישׁ מִלְחָמָ֑ה

יְהוָ֖ה שְׁמֽוֹ

In this case the atnach ^ is preceded by the munah and that is preceded by tifcha, there is neither zaqef nor pashta in this example. I assume he is not then talking about immediate precedence. He goes on to present Exodus 15:12:

נָטִ֙יתָ֙ יְמִ֣ינְךָ֔ תִּבְלָעֵ֖מוֹ אָֽרֶץ

Here there are a pair of pashta preceding a zaqef.

He is to make an important point and ask a specific question as he puts the parallelism in the Song of the Sea in line with the use of the accents. His third example is verse 8, logically a tricolon, but from a cadential point of view, a bicolon.

His fourth example is verse 16, showing equivalence of accents through mutual subordination (what a strange way to describe music.) Here is how he puts it:

In this case atnach marks the end of a bicolon and is of similar strength as silluq and zaqef is thus subordinated to silluq and atnach. In the previous examples atnach was subordinated to silluq and thus not of similar strength to silluq and consequently did not belong to the same grade...

Now this, Edward Bear would say, is Hard-to-Follow for a layperson in Hebrew. In fact most of you have given up on that paragraph.

So now to my question: how many ways can you approach a rest, i.e., in these cases, the major rest point in the prose books (even though this chapter is poetry, it is not using the accentuation of the Psalms).

The music is below. If you can read music, you will see how many differing ways that the mid-point of the verse is approached. I have seen many: E-F-G#-A, D-F-G#-A, E-G#-B-A, E-B-A, E-B-G#-A, E-A!, and several other variations.

So it is not that "an atnach is preceded by tifcha", but that the rest on A (effectively the subdominant) is preceded, often immediately by or a note or two, by a G#, because this note is musically its leading tone. tifcha is then no longer a mystery, it leads somewhere harmonically and a musician setting the words to music would be able to use it as the sense of the words required.

Now come to the 4-colon verse 16. This verse is not by any means a simple parallelism. It is a progressive parallel, a bicolon, each of which can be subdivided and is, by the appoggiatura. leading first to the dread (word 4) that makes them to be mute as stones (words 7-8), and then to the cadence that sings of the purchase or acquisition (word 17).

תִּפֹּ֨ל עֲלֵיהֶ֤ם אֵימָ֙תָה֙ וָפַ֔חַד בִּגְדֹ֥ל זְרוֹעֲךָ֖ יִדְּמ֣וּ כָּאָ֑בֶן

עַד־יַעֲבֹ֤ר עַמְּךָ֙ יְהוָ֔ה עַֽד־יַעֲבֹ֖ר עַם־ז֥וּ קָנִֽיתָ

Horror and dread will fall on them by the greatness of your arm. They will be mute as a stone, //
till your people is over, Yahweh, till is over, this people that you purchased.

The music snippet illustrates the accents in what turns out to be a common (if complex) phrase structure.

In this chapter on the Song of  the Sea, this form of phrase occurs several times: verses 1a and b, 2 and b, 8a, 11a, 15a, 16a and b, 21b, 22a, 25a, 26a. Each of these verse segments reaches the high C with ornaments and takes many syllables to reach the rest (atnach) or the final tonic note (silluq) of the verse. Different complexities occur after verse 16 with several verses using the low C: 17a, 19a and b, 20a, 22b.

I suspect that these musical forms capture the essence of the understanding of the text as it would have been perceived by the one who first coded the hand signals. And I think the music of Haik-Vantoura accomplishes this revelation of ancient understanding far better than words about accents or even the complex melismas of tradition (per Jacobson).

The song itself ends with verse 18, the only verse in the chapter to have no atnach (mid-verse rest). In verse 21b, the opening line of the Song of the Sea is re-sung as a refrain. And the music is identical.

In the remaining prose section, the imitative climax of the music in verses 25 and 26 continues (25) the reflection on the song, and highlights (26) the consequence to be learned from the experience. Verse 27 is a simpler tune moving the company from one experience to the next.

de Hoop has many more examples in which he is explaining the music in words. What we need to do now is explore how the simple rules of Haik-Vantoura reveal both the beauty of the music as well as the understanding of the text.

The first step to translation must now be: open the score of the chapter and sing the text. All the chapters of the Hebrew Bible are now available in musical score from this blog site. See the instructions on the music page.