[HANASHIR:5169] Re: Haftara Kadma

[Joel Siegel <siegeljd...>]

Barbara462 (at) aol(dot)com wrote:

> In a message dated 02/07/2000 8:17:41 AM Pacific Standard Time,
> jrowland (at) bhcong(dot)org writes:
>
> > I have also encountered tutors who don't even realize that
> >  Kadma exists, singing all of them like Pashta, in both Torah and
> >  Haftara. The other common mistake is the mercha-tevir combination, where
> >  the mercha is sung as if it were mercha-tipcha.
> You know, it's interesting.  I'd wondered also where people got this idea.
> This is the way Spiro teaches it in his Haftarah chanting.  It was making me
> crazy.  Now I teach the trop class, where my students learn the brachot as
> well.  A kadma is now a kadma!
>

Spiro's text apparently has adopted several "necessary simplifications ... for
the sake of the average young student.  It was felt that to insist on the full
range of Trope variations at this time would constitute an undue hardship on
the majority of boys and girls preparing to become B'ney Mitzvah."  Spiro,
HAFTARAH CHANTING (revised ed. 1994) at 36-37.  One of those simplifications is
that a "qadma/pashta" symbol in isolation (meaning, as far as I can tell, not
followed by an Azla) is always treated as a Pashta.  See p. 38.  In other
words, the only time Qadma will be treated as Qadma in the simplified version
is in the Qadma-Azla combination; otherwise it's treated as Pashta.  For
general background on Spiro's simplifications, see pp. 36-39.

The text also has a complete traditional list of the tropes in its
supplementary section for Torah readers, beginning on p. 157.

This of course doesn't explain why so often the opening of the b'racha is
taught as mahpach-pashta-pashta-pashta.  It's not very appealing musically and
AFAIK the combination nowhere appears in any biblical text.

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