transliteration, cantorial stuff

[cellio]

We ended up talking a little bit about the Hebrew/English balance at services and the use of transliteration in the siddur. Some rabbis apparently hold the view that transliteration is a crutch that keeps people from actually learning Hebrew. I suspect that's not quite right.

I dislike reading from transliteration, and avoid it except when urgent even if it means I won't be able to say every word (due to being slow). On the other hand, when I was just starting to attend services and didn't know anything yet, I was really grateful to have it. I was able to use it to jump-start my participation, yet I did not lose my motivation to learn to read for real. I commented on this to my rabbi, who said something like "yeah, but you taught yourself trope too -- you're not typical". Actually, though, I suspect I am typical among that subset of the population that will learn to read anyway. It's just that most people will apparently settle for transliteration -- but if it weren't there they'd sit in silence, not say "gee, I'm not getting any help here; I better learn the language". Or so I theorize. (Data welcome.)

The real issue there, I guess, is that most people don't want to learn to read a foreign alphabet at speed. I'd rather give them some tools for participation than write them off. (And just to clarify, I'm pretty sure my rabbi shares that view. He's not the one who said transliteration should be eliminated.)

But I'd also be thrilled if I, personally, never had to rely on transliteration again. :-)

- - - - - - - -

In other news, I met with our cantorial soloist last night to discuss that service at the end of July. She is quite happy to have me doing most of the music, with other committee members doing some, and she said she would like to see more of this. So we'll be sort of a test case or something, to see how the congregation reacts. The subs are already mostly lined up for her maternity leave (which is going to be very short, because she wants to be back before the high holy days), but she pointed out that next summer there will be an opportunity to do more. No, she's not planning another kid (or if she is, she didn't share that information), but the congregation has managed to clear next summer of b'nei mitzvot, so services during the summer can be less formal and more experimental. (Next year's class is small, so we are taking the opportunity to do some sanctuary renovations.) I'd love to see more lay people being more involved in things like this.

We also talked about the trope class I want us to have in the fall or winter, and she's going to do what she can to make it happen. The lines of responsibility are a little fuzzy here, and we both want to make sure it doesn't fall through the cracks.

Comments

[cellio]

("so I've figured out what some of those marks around the Sh'ma mean; how about the rest?")

A word of warning there: people mostly learn to chant the Sh'ma by ear, rather than by reading the trope, and there tends to be some drift as that happens. There are also several different trope systems (that is, sets of melodies that go with the symbols). I haven't figured out which trope system, if any, the typical-for-Pittsburgh Sh'ma chanting matches, but it's not exactly the one I've been learning.

If you want the cheat sheet from the trope book I'm using, just let me know. 40 trope phrases written out in modern musical notation -- very handy.

Trope Music?

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in the book itself. What's the title, and which tropes does it cover?

I ask because I started learning some torah trope to read a section of Parasha Noach for our aufruf and our Rabbi was very clear to me that torah trope differs from haftorah trope. We didn't get into the actual differences. Unfortunately, time constraints led a shift in the learning process - I learned the section by mimicry rather than knowledge of the trope itself. So I still can't chant. :(

While you're at it, you can send the "cheat sheet" as well. :)

Re: Trope Music?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

There's a website that actually might be of help to you - Navigating the Bible (http://bible.ort.org/intro1.asp?lang=1) from the folks at ORT. On the right-hand side, there is a link to Torah. This links to text - both cantillated and non (what I think of as "Tikkun text" and Torah text") - of each Torah portion, and next to every verse is a link for audio of the text being lained.

From a halachic perspective, I'm really not sure how I feel about this. But from the perspective of someone who has had to learn and teach many a Torah and Haftara portion, I think it's an excellent resource.

Re: Trope Music?

[cellio]

That site is helpful, yes. I've used it too. It can be hard to practice from if you're learning a portion, because you only see it two or three verses at a time, but it's a handy aid to learning.

Note to caryabend: this site and the book I mentioned do not use the same trope system.

I have found Trope Trainer (software -- PC only, I think) to be really, really helpful. It knows about a bunch of trope systems and will give you Ashkenazi or Sephardi pronunciation (in your choice of vocal range), and it shows you the music notation for the phrases as it's playing. You can view the text with or without the trope marks and with or without vowels/punctuation, and you can have it highlight trope phrases with colors. Handy learning/practice aid! There are also tutorials on the CD, which I haven't looked at yet.

Re: Trope Music?

[cellio]

The book is The Art of Torah Cantillation by Marshall Portnoy and Josee Wolff. It teaches the trope system that I have since learned is called "Binder"; it's the one that seems to be prevalent in Reform congregations. (It's not that different from the one I hear at a local Conservative congregation, though.) The book is divided into sections to teach each phrase, with texts to practice on, and comes with a CD. There is a two-page spread in the back that shows all the trope phrases in modern musical notation; my biggest complaint about the book is that they don't show those in the sections where they teach the phrases too. So you'll be reading along and it'll say "this symbol sounds like this: [play track 8 on CD]" or something -- would it have been so much trouble to also include the music there? What if it's not convenient to play the CD at the time (like, because it's Shabbat, or because you're studying on the bus, or whatever)? You can flip to the back of the book, of course, but that's a pain. I guess they figure that most people don't read music, but for those who do, this would be a real help.

(Hmm. Having said that, I should apply photocopying, scissors, and glue-sticks to the problem for my own copy of the book.)

While you're at it, you can send the "cheat sheet" as well. :)

Sure. Send me a physical address.

Re: Trope Music?

[cellio]

Oh, and yes -- torah and haftarah trope are different. I don't know exactly how, as I have been carefully avoiding the latter until I completely learn the former. No sense confusing myself with that. :-)

Noach isn't for a while -- you could relearn the section for real and chant it this year, assuming your congregation allows that sort of thing "just because" rather than because you have a specific occasion like an aufruf or bar mitzvah.

Re: Trope Music?

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

"It's called Binder": Well, Rabbi Binder (Reform) wrote a well-regarded (in Orthodox circles as well) book on tropes, including music for all the various modes in general use, at least for Ashkenazic, and I think some Sephardic styles: Torah, Haftorah, High Holidays Torah, Esther, Eichah, Other Three Megillas. It goes in & out of print.

I taught myself to read Ruth (one of the Other Three Megillas) from the musical examples in Idelsohn's "Jewish Music in its Historical Development" one Shavuot when we didn't have anyone who knew how to do it. Germans have a system that's a little different from Eastern European Ashkenazic, whose Torah trope sounds a bit like our Esther.

I spent a year and a half learning my bar-mitzva parsha (Lech Lecha), first learning the tropes themselves with flash cards, then applying them to the text. I cut it kind of close, but learned the haftarah in the last week-and-a-half. Once I was used to the cadences of Tanach text from the Torah, learning a new set of notes was all but trivial.

Rabbi Binder

[cellio]

Thanks for the information. I only had the name "Binder", which I got from Trope Trainer. (Trope Trainer has a couple dozen trope systems, and I cycled through them until I found the one I recognized.)

[mishtaneh.livejournal.com]

Noticed that; there are places where Temple Sinai and Rodef Shalom don't match either each other or the trope reference I was using (http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Cantillation/Cantillation.html (http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Cantillation/Cantillation.html)) — there was another site I looked at last year which had three different trope systems, but it 404s now). And I'd not be terribly surprised if no two synagogues (of any variety) quite match each other. :)

I'd be interested in the "cheat sheet", I think.