ELLIE'S RELATED LINKS

Other sites you can visit to learn more about chanting from the Torah.

1. Chanting the Bible

   This site includes midi files for both the Torah and Haftorah melodies

2. Navigating the Bible

   A comprehensive site for chanting Torah and Haftorah, recording each sentence as separate real audio files.

3. Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley

   Torah trope selections used at Beth El for teaching trope to Bar/Bat Mitzvah students; sung by Cantor Lorel Zar-Kessler.

4. Torah Tropes

   Sung by Dov Goldberg, Religious School Director, Congregation Beth El, Ann Arbor, Michigan

5. Chanting Torah by Doug Hirsch

   Background information for Chanting Torah.

6. Hebrew Cantillation Marks and Their Encoding.

   A short description by Helmut Richter of the Hebrew cantillation marks and their usage for structuring the Bible text. The problems of their representaiton in modern character codes are briefly outlined. The article also contains tables with the Unicode and Michigan-Claremont codings of the cantillation marks. Cantillation is not treated here.

Other interesting sites

1. Siddur Ba-eir Hei-teiv -- The Transliterated Siddur

   This site by Jordan Lee Wagner, is a complete transliteration of the siddur.

For further reading off the web, here is a select bibliography provided by JTS cantorial student, Seth Adelson.
Thanks Seth.

1. Binder, a. W., Biblical Chant, Sacred Music Press, New York, 1959.

   This is probably the most practical, useful book there is on the subject. All of the different cantillation melodies and unusual occurrences are discussed

2. Idelsohn, Abraham Z., Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, Dover Publications, New York, 1992.

   Chapter 3 has a good summary of the history of t'amei hamikra

3. Jacobson, Joshua R.,Chanting the Hebrew Bible: The Art of Cantillation, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 2002.

   Thorough, comprehensive; this book is a formidable reference for everything that has to do with trope

4. Ne'eman, Yehoshua L., Tz'lilei hamikra, Moreshet, Tel Aviv, 1955.

   In Hebrew, but it's a good instructive manual

5. Portnoy, Marshall and Josee Wolff, The Art of Torah Cantillation: A Step-byStep Guide to Chanting Torah, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, New York, 2000.

   This book teaches cantillation by emphasizing trope patterns

6. Rosowsky, Solomon, The Cantillation of the Bible, Reconstructionist Press, New York, 1957.

   This a super-heavy-duty in-depth analysis of every trope mark and how it's used. May be useless to the layperson, but helpful for serious researchers

7. Sherman-Gold, Rivka, The Ohs and Ahs of Torah Reading, Yodan Publishing, Mountain View, CA, 1999.

   Grammar buffs will love this book; it focuses upon the incidence of the kamatz katan and other grammatical oddities; a good reference for the serious ba'al q'ri'ah

8. Werner, Eric, The Sacred Bridge, Columbia University Press, New York, 1959.

   Chapter 4 has some interesting historical information

9. Wickes, William, Two Treatises on the Accentuation of the Old Testament.KTAV, New York, 1970.

   This is a recent reprinting of two scholarly works from the late 19th century. Very sholarly with some useful history