[HANASHIR:10186] Re: manual trope

[Lawrence Kay <LarryTheKay...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julia Priest" <priestsinger (at) mediaone(dot)net>

> I assume that the origin of the written trop is thought to echo
pre-existing
> hand signs, just as the neumes of early Western musical notation
(Gregorian
> chant) probably also did.

------- MY RESPONSE -----

In "the Roots of Biblical Chants" by Richard Neumann (Board of Jewish Educ.
of Greater NY), he says:

"One of the functions of the Levites was to teach the worshipers the weekly
portion of the Torah...Their method was to use hand signs.
"Each hand-sign signified a specific musical melody (or motif)...
"After the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were dispersed, some of the
Levites...wrote special scrolls for teaching purposes, including the
pictorial signs of the hands, as they had been used in the Temple.  Each
sign designating a melodic motif was eventually given a descriptive name,
such as: Mapakh...Pashta...Munah.
"The hand-signs in time became abstracted as in these examples [he then
draws the modern mapakh, pashta, and munah]."

He also gives some examples of the hand signs, but, alas, only for 8 t'amim.

Larry Kay

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