History of religious Jewish music - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Origin of Jewish music in the Temple

The earliest synagogal

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

music was based on the same system as that used in the Temple in Jerusalem

Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...

. According to the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

, Joshua ben Hananiah, who had served in the sanctuary Levitical choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

, told how the choristers went to the synagogue

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

from the orchestra by the altar (Talmud, Suk. 53a), and so participated in both services.

Biblical and contemporary sources mention the following instruments that were used in the ancient Temple:

the Nevel, a 12-stringed harp;
the Kinnor, a lyre with 10 strings;
the Shofar
Shofar
A shofar is a horn, traditionally that of a ram, used for Jewish religious purposes. Shofar-blowing is incorporated in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.Shofar come in a variety of sizes.- Bible and rabbinic literature :...

, a hollowed-out ram's horn;
the chatzutzera, or trumpet, made of silver;
the tof or small drum;
the metziltayim, or cymbal;
the paamon or bell;
the halil or big flute.

According to the Mishna, the regular Temple orchestra consisted of twelve instruments, and the choir of twelve male singers.

A number of additional instruments were known to the ancient Hebrews, though they were not included in the regular orchestra of the Temple: the uggav (small flute), the abbuv (a reed flute or oboe-like instrument).

After the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent diaspora

Diaspora

A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

of the Jewish people, there was a feeling of great loss among the people. At the time, a consensus developed that all music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

and singing would be banned; this was codified as a rule by some early Jewish rabbinic authorities. However, the ban on singing and music, although not formally lifted by any council, soon became understood as only a ban outside of religious services. Within the synagogue the custom of singing soon re-emerged. In later years, the practice became to allow singing for feasts celebrating religious life-cycle events such as weddings, and over time the formal ban against singing and performing music lost its force altogether.

It was with the piyyutim
Piyyut
A piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...

(liturgical poems) that Jewish music began to crystallize into definite form. The cantor

Hazzan

A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

sang the piyyutim

Piyyut

A piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...

to melodies selected by their writer or by himself, thus introducing fixed melodies into synagogal music. The prayers he continued to recite as he had heard his predecessors recite them; but in moments of inspiration he would give utterance to a phrase of unusual beauty

Beauty

Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...

, which, caught up by the congregants.

Adaptations from local music

The music may have preserved a few phrases in the reading of Scripture which recalled songs from the Temple itself; but generally it echoed the tones which the Jew of each age and country heard around him, not merely in the actual borrowing of tunes, but more in the tonality on which the local music was based. These elements persist side by side, rendering the traditional intonations a blend of different sources.

The underlying principle may be the specific allotment in Jewish worship of a particular mode to each sacred occasion, because of some esthetic appropriateness felt to underlie the association. In contrast to the meager modal choice of modern melody, the synagogal tradition revels in the possession of a of scale-forms preserved from the remote past, much as are to be perceived in the plain-song of the Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

, the Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

, and the Armenian

Armenia

Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

churches

Christian denomination

A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity. In the Orthodox tradition, Churches are divided often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and...

, as well as Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, Roma, Persian and Arab sources.

Cantorial and synagogue music

The traditional mode of singing prayers in the synagogue is often known as hazzanut, "the art of being a hazzan (cantor)". It is a style of florid melodious intonation which requires the exercise of vocal agility. It was introduced into Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

in the seventh century, then rapidly developed.

The age of the various elements in synagogal song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

may be traced from the order in which the passages of the text were first introduced into the liturgy and were in turn regarded as so important as to demand special vocalization. This order closely agrees with that in which the successive tones and styles still preserved for these elements came into use among the Gentile neighbors of the Jews who utilized them. Earliest of all is the cantillation of the Scriptures, in which the traditions of the various rites differ only as much and in the same manner from one another as their particular interpretations according to the text and occasion differ among themselves. This indeed was to be anticipated if the differentiation itself preserves a peculiarity of the music of the Temple (see Jew. Encyc. iii. 539a, s.v. Cantillation).

Next comes, from the first ten centuries, and probably taking shape only with the Jewish settlement in western and northern Europe, the cantillation of the Amidah

Amidah

The Amidah , also called the Shmoneh Esreh , is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. This prayer, among others, is found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book...

referred to below, which was the first portion of the liturgy dedicated to a musical rendering, all that preceded it remaining unchanted . Gradually the song of the precentor commenced at ever earlier points in the service. By the tenth century the chant commenced at "Barukh She-Amar", the previous custom having been to commence the singing at "Nishmat," these conventions being still traceable in practise in the introit signalizing the entry of the junior and of the senior officiant. Hence, in turn, appeared cantillation, prayer-motive, fixed melody

Melody

A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

, and hymn as forms of synagogal music.

Reminiscences of Gentile Sacred Melody

The contemporaneous musical fashion of the outer world has ever found its echo within the walls of the synagogue, so that in the superstructure added by successive generations of transmitting singers there are always discernible points of comparison, even of contact, with the style and structure of each successive era in the musical history of other religious communions. Attention has frequently been drawn to the resemblances in manner and even in some points of detail between the chants of the muezzin and of the reader of the Qur'an

Qur'an

The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

with much of the hazzanut, not alone of the Sephardim, who passed so many centuries in Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

lands, but also of the Ashkenazim, equally long located far away in northern Europe.

The intonations of the Sephardim even more intimately recall the plain-song of the Mozarabian Christians

Mozarabic Rite

The Mozarabic, Visigothic, or Hispanic Rite is a form of Catholic worship within the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, and in the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church . Its beginning dates to the 7th century, and is localized in the Iberian Peninsula...

, which flourished in their proximity until the thirteenth century. Their chant

Chant

Chant is the rhythmic speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes to highly complex musical structures Chant (from French chanter) is the rhythmic speaking or singing...

s and other set melodies largely consist of very short phrases often repeated, just as Perso-Arab melody so often does; and their congregational airs usually preserve a Morisco or other Peninsular character.

The Cantillation reproduces the tonalities and the melodic outlines prevalent in the western world during the first ten centuries of the Diaspora; and the prayer-motives, although their method of employment recalls far more ancient and more Oriental parallels, are equally reminiscent of those characteristic of the eighth to the thirteenth century of the common era. Many of the phrases introduced in the hazzanut generally, closely resemble the musical expression of the sequences which developed in the Catholic Plain-Song after the example set by the school famous as that of Notker Balbulus, at St. Gall, in the early tenth century. The earlier formal melodies still more often are paralleled in the festal intonations of the monastic precentors of the eleventh to the fifteenth century, even as the later synagogal hymns everywhere approximate greatly to the secular music of their day.

The traditional penitential intonation transcribed in the article Ne'ilah with the piyyut

Piyyut

A piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...

"Darkeka" closely reproduces the music of a parallel species of medieval Latin verse, the metrical sequence "Missus Gabriel de Cœlis" by Adam of St. Victor (c. 1150) as given in the "Graduale Romanum" of Sarum. The mournful chant characteristic of penitential days in all the Jewish rites, is closely recalled by the Church antiphon in the second mode "Da Pacem Domine in Diebus Nostris" ("Vesperale Ratisbon," p. 42). The joyous intonation of the Northern European rite for morning and afternoon prayers on the Three Festivals (Passover

Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

, Sukkot

Sukkot

Sukkot is a Biblical holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei . It is one of the three biblically mandated festivals Shalosh regalim on which Hebrews were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.The holiday lasts seven days...

and Shavuot

Shavuot

The festival of is a Jewish holiday that occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan ....

) closes with the third tone, third ending of the Gregorian

Gregorian

Gregorian might refer to:* The thought or ideology of Pope Gregory I or Pope Gregory VII *Things named for Pope Gregory I:**Gregorian chant** Gregorian mass**Brotherhood of Saint Gregory...

psalmody; and the traditional chant for the Hallel itself, when not the one reminiscent of the "Tonus Peregrinus

Tonus Peregrinus

Tonus Peregrinus is a vocal ensemble specialising in early music and contemporary sacred music, especially that of founder and director, Antony Pitts...

," closely corresponds with those for Ps. cxiii. and cxvii. ("Laudate Pueri" and "Laudate Dominum") in the "Graduale Romanum" of Ratisbon, for the vespers of June 24, the festival of John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

, in which evening service the famous "Ut Queant Laxis," from which the modern scale derived the names of its degrees, also occurs.

Prayer-Motives

Next to the passages of Scripture recited in cantillation, the most ancient and still the most important section of the Jewish liturgy

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

is the sequence of benedictions which is known as the Amidah

Amidah

The Amidah , also called the Shmoneh Esreh , is the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. This prayer, among others, is found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book...

("standing prayer"), being the section which in the ritual of the Dispersion more immediately takes the place of the sacrifice offered in the ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

of the Temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

on the corresponding occasion. It accordingly attracts the intonation of the passages which precede and follow it into its own musical rendering. Like the lessons, it, too, is cantillated. This free intonation is not, as with the Scriptural texts

Text (literary theory)

A text, within literary theory, is a coherent set of symbols that transmits some kind of informative message. This set of symbols is considered in terms of the informative message's content, rather than in terms of its physical form or the medium in which it is represented...

, designated by any system of accents, but consists of a melodious development of certain themes or motives traditionally associated with the individual service, and therefore termed by the present writer "prayer-motives." These are each differentiated from other prayer-motives much as are the respective forms of the cantillation, the divergence being especially marked in the tonality

Tonality

Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...

due to the modal feeling alluded to above. Tonality depends on that particular position of the semitones or smaller intervals between two successive degrees of the scale which causes the difference in color familiar to modern ears in the contrast between major and minor melodies.

Throughout the musical history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

of the synagogue a particular mode or scale-form has long been traditionally associated with a particular service. It appears in its simplest form in the prayer-motive—which is best defined, to use a musical phrase, as a sort of coda—to which the benediction (berakha) closing each paragraph of the prayers is to be chanted. This is associated with a secondary phrase, somewhat after the tendency which led to the framing of the binary form

Binary form

Binary form is a musical form in two related sections, both of which are usually repeated. Binary is also a structure used to choreograph dance....

in European classical music. The phrases are amplified and developed according to the length, the structure, and, above all, the sentiment of the text of the paragraph, and lead always into the coda

Coda (music)

Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...

in a manner anticipating the form of instrumental music entitled the "rondo

Rondo

Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...

," although in no sense an imitation of the modern form. The responses likewise follow the tonality of the prayer-motive.

This intonation is designated by the Hebrew term nigun
Nigun
A nigun or niggun is a form of Jewish religious song or tune sung by groups. It is vocal music, often with repetitive sounds such as "bim-bim-bam" or "ai-ai-ai!" instead of formal lyrics. Sometimes, Bible verses or quotes from other classical Jewish texts are sung repetitively to form a nigun...

("tune

Tune

Tune may refer to:* A melody* A tune-family* A tune , a short piece of instrumental music, usually with repeating sections, and often played a number of times* British slang term, often said when referring to a piece of music that is enjoyed...

") when its melody is primarily in view, by the Yiddish term "Shteyger" (scale) when its modal peculiarities and tonality are under consideration, and by the Romance

Romance languages

The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...

word "gust" and the Slavonic

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

"skarbowa" when the taste or style of the rendering especially marks it off from other music. The use of these terms, in addition to such less definite Hebraisms as "ne'imah" ("melody"), shows that the scales and intervals of such prayer-motives have long been recognized and observed to differ characteristically from those of contemporary Gentile music, even if the principles underlying their employment have only quite recently been formulated.

Modal Difference

The modal differences are not always so observable in the Sephardic or Southern tradition. Here the participation of the congregants has tended to a more general uniformity, and has largely reduced the intonation to a chant around the dominant, or fifth degree of the scale, as if it were a derivation from the Ashkenazic daily morning theme (see below), but ending with a descent to the major third, or, less often, to the tonic note. Even where the particular occasion—such as a fast—might call for a change of tonality, the anticipation of the congregational response brings the close of the benediction back to the usual major third. But enough differences remain, especially in the Italian rendering, to show that the principle of parallel rendering with modal difference, fully apparent in their cantillation, underlies the prayer-intonations of the Sephardim also. This principle has marked effects in the Ashkenazic or Northern tradition, where it is as clear in the rendering of the prayers as in that of the Scriptural lessons, and is also apparent in the Ḳerobot.

All the tonalities are distinct. They are formulated in the subjoined tabular statement, in which the various traditional motives of the Ashkenazic ritual have been brought to the same pitch of reciting-note in order to facilitate comparison of their modal differences.

Chromatic Intervals

By ancient tradition, from the days when the Jews who passed the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

in Teutonic

Teutonic

Teutonic or Teuton may refer to:*the Teutons* Germanic peoples , see Theodiscus**Teutonic Mythology** Germanic languages * Having qualities related to Modern Germans*Nordic race*Furor Teutonicus...

lands were still under the same tonal influences as the peoples in southeastern Europe and Asia Minor yet are, chromatic scale

Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

s (i.e., those showing some successive intervals greater than two semitones) have been preserved. The Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath in Christianity is a weekly day of rest or religious observance, derived from the Biblical Sabbath.Seventh-day Sabbath observance, i.e. resting from labor from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, is practiced by seventh-day Sabbatarians...

morning and week-day evening motives are especially affected by this survival, which also frequently induces the Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

ḥazzanim to modify similarly the diatonic intervals of the other prayer-motives. The chromatic intervals survive as a relic of the Oriental tendency to divide an ordinary interval of pitch into subintervals (comp. Hallel for Tabernacles, the "lulab" chant), as a result of the intricacy of some of the vocal embroideries in actual employment, which are not infrequently of a character to daunt an ordinary singer. Even among Western cantors, trained amid mensurate music on a contrapuntal basis, there is still a remarkable propensity to introduce the interval of the augmented second, especially between the third and second degrees of any scale in a descending cadence. Quite commonly two augmented seconds will be employed in the octave, as in the frequent form—much loved by Eastern peoples—termed by Bourgault-Ducoudray ("Mélodies Populaires de Grèce et d'Orient," p. 20, Paris, 1876) "the Oriental chromatic" (see music below).

The "harmonia," or manner in which the prayer-motive will be amplified into hazzanut, is measured rather by the custom of the locality and the powers of the officiant than by the importance of the celebration. The precentor will accommodate the motive to the structure of the sentence he is reciting by the judicious use of the reciting-note, varied by melismatic ornament. In the development of the subject he is bound to no definite form, rhythm, manner, or point of detail, but may treat it quite freely according to his personal capacity, inclination, and sentiment, so long only as the conclusion of the passage and the short doxology closing it, if it ends in a benediction, are chanted to the snatch of melody forming the coda, usually distinctly fixed and so furnishing the modal motive. The various sections of the melodious improvisation will thus lead smoothly back to the original subject, and so work up to a symmetrical and clear conclusion. The prayer-motives, being themselves definite in tune and well recognized in tradition, preserve the homogeneity of the service through the innumerable variations induced by impulse or intention, by energy or fatigue, by gladness or depression, and by every other mental and physical sensation of the precentor which can affect his artistic feeling (see table).

Occasions for Music

The development of music among the Israelites was coincident with that of poetry, the two being equally ancient, since every poem was also sung. Although little mention is made of it, music was used in very early times in connection with divine service. Amos vi. 5 and Isa. v. 12 show that the feasts immediately following sacrifices were very often attended with music, and from Amos v. 23 it may be gathered that songs had already become a part of the regular service. Moreover, popular festivals of all kinds were celebrated with singing and music, usually accompanying dances in which, as a rule, women and maidens joined. Victorious generals were welcomed with music on their return (Judges xi. 34; I Sam. xviii. 6), and music naturally accompanied the dances at harvest festivals (Judges ix. 27, xxi. 21) and at the accession of kings or their marriages (I Kings i. 40; Ps. xlv. 9). Family festivals of different kinds were celebrated with music (Gen. xxxi. 27; Jer. xxv. 10). I Sam. xvi. 18 indicates that the shepherd cheered his loneliness with his reed-pipe, and Lam. v. 14 shows that youths coming together at the gates entertained one another with stringed instruments. David by his playing on the harp drove away the spirit of melancholy from Saul (I Sam. xvi. 16 et seq.); the holy ecstasy of the Prophets was stimulated by dancing and music (I Sam. x. 5, 10; xix. 20); playing on a harp awoke the inspiration that came to Elisha (II Kings iii. 15). The description in Chronicles of the embellishment by David of the Temple service with a rich musical liturgy represents in essence the order of the Second Temple, since, as is now generally admitted, the liturgical Temple Psalms belong to the post-exilic period.

The importance which music attained in the later exilic period is shown by the fact that in the original writings of Ezra and Nehemiah a distinction is still drawn between the singers and the Levites (comp. Ezra ii. 41, 70; vii. 7, 24; x. 23; Neh. vii. 44, 73; x. 29, 40; etc.); whereas in the parts of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah belonging to the Chronicles singers are reckoned among the Levites (comp. Ezra iii. 10; Neh. xi. 22; xii. 8, 24, 27; I Chron. vi. 16). In later times singers even received a priestly position, since Agrippa II. gave them permission to wear the white priestly garment (comp. Josephus, "Ant." xx. 9, § 6). The detailed statements of the Talmud show that the service became ever more richly embellished.

Singing in the Temple

Unfortunately few definite statements can be made concerning the kind and the degree of the artistic development of music and psalm-singing. Only so much seems certain, that the folk-music of older times was replaced by professional music, which was learned by the families of singers who officiated in the Temple. The participation of the congregation in the Temple song was limited to certain responses, such as "Amen" or "Halleluiah," or formulas like "Since His mercy endureth forever," etc. As in the old folk-songs, antiphonal singing, or the singing of choirs in response to each other, was a feature of the Temple service. At the dedication of the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah formed the Levitical singers into two large choruses, which, after having marched around the city walls in different directions, stood opposite each other at the Temple and sang alternate hymns of praise to God (Neh. xii. 31). Niebuhr ("Reisen," i. 176) calls attention to the fact that in the Orient it is still the custom for a precentor to sing one strophe, which is repeated three, four, or five tones lower by the other singers. In this connection mention may be made of the alternating song of the seraphim in the Temple, when called upon by Isaiah (comp. Isa. vi.). The measure must have varied according to the character of the song; and it is not improbable that it changed even in the same song. Without doubt the striking of the cymbals marked the measure.

Ancient Hebrew music, like much Arabic music today, was probably monophonic; that is, there is no harmony. Niebuhr refers to the fact that when Arabs play on different instruments and sing at the same time, almost the same melody is heard from all, unless one of them sings or plays as bass one and the same note throughout. It was probably the same with the Israelites in olden times, who attuned the stringed instruments to the voices of the singers either on the same note or in the octave or at some other consonant interval. This explains the remark in II Chron. v. 13 that at the dedication of the Temple the playing of the instruments, the singing of the Psalms, and the blare of the trumpets sounded as one sound. Probably the unison of the singing of Psalms was the accord of two voices an octave apart. This may explain the terms "'al 'alamot" and "'al ha-sheminit." On account of the important part which women from the earliest times took in singing, it is comprehensible that the higher pitch was simply called the "maiden's key," and "ha-sheminit" would then be an octave lower.

There is no question that melodies repeated in each strophe, in the modern manner, were not sung at either the earlier or the later periods of psalm-singing; since no such thing as regular strophes occurred in Hebrew poetry. In fact, in the earlier times there were no strophes at all; and although they are found later, they are by no means so regular as in modern poetry. Melody, therefore, must then have had comparatively great freedom and elasticity and must have been like the Oriental melody of to-day. As Niebuhr points out, the melodies are earnest and simple, and the singers must make every word intelligible. A comparison has often been made with the eight notes of the Gregorian chant or with the Oriental psalmody introduced into the church of Milan by Ambrosius: the latter, however, was certainly developed under the influence of Grecian music, although in origin it may have had some connection with the ancient synagogal psalm-singing, as Delitzsch claims that it was ("Psalmen," 3d ed., p. 27).

Contemporary Jewish Music

Jewish Music in the 20th century has spanned the gamut from Shlomo Carlebach

Shlomo Carlebach

Shlomo Carlebach , known as Reb Shlomo to his followers, was a Jewish rabbi, religious teacher, composer, and singer who was known as "The Singing Rabbi" during his lifetime...

's nigunim to Debbie Friedman

Debbie Friedman

Deborah Lynn "Debbie" Friedman was an American composer and singer of songs with Jewish religious content. She was born in Utica, New York but moved with her family to Minnesota at age 5. She is best known for her setting of “Mi Shebeirach”, the prayer for healing, which is used by hundreds of...

's Jewish feminist folk. Velvel Pasternak

Velvel Pasternak

Velvel Pasternak is a musicologist, conductor, arranger, producer, and publisher specializing in Jewish music. In 1981 he was described as "an expert on the music of the Hasidic sect and probably the largest publisher of Jewish music anywhere, although he is quick to note that publishing Jewish...

has spent much of the late twentieth century acting as a preservationist and committing what had been a strongly oral tradition to paper. John Zorn's

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

record label, Tzadik

Tzadik Records

Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...

, features a "Radical Jewish Culture" series that focuses on exploring what contemporary Jewish music is and what it offers to contemporary Jewish culture.

Periodically Jewish music jumps into mainstream consciousness, Matisyahu (musician) being the most recent example.

Example

One type of music, based on Shlomo Carlebach's, is very popular among Orthodox artists and their listeners. This type of music usually consists of the same formulaic mix. This mix is usually brass

Brass instrument

A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...

, horns

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

and strings

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

. These songs are composed from within one pool of composers and one pool of arrangers. Many of the entertainers are former yeshiva

Yeshiva

Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...

students, and perform dressed in a dress suit. Many have day jobs and sideline singing at Jewish weddings. Others moonlight in kollel

Kollel

A kollel is an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature. Like a yeshiva, a kollel features shiurim and learning sedarim ; unlike a yeshiva, the student body of a kollel are all married men...

study or at Jewish organizations. Some have no formal musical education, and sing mainly pre-arranged songs.

Lyrics are most commonly short passages in Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

from the Torah

Torah

Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

or the siddur

Siddur

A siddur is a Jewish prayer book, containing a set order of daily prayers. This article discusses how some of these prayers evolved, and how the siddur, as it is known today has developed...

, with the occasional obscure passage from the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

. Sometimes there are songs with lyrics compiled in English in more standard form, with central themes such as Jerusalem, the Holocaust, Jewish identity

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

, and the Jewish diaspora

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....

.

Some composers are Yossi Green

Yossi Green

Yossi Green is a composer of Jewish music. His works include some major hits of the Jewish industry. He wrote his first international hit song for Yigal Calek and the London School of Jewish Song in 1973....

; a big-name arranger of this type of music is Yisroel Lamm. Artsits include Avraham Fried

Avraham Fried

Avraham Shabshi Hakohen Friedman better known by his stage name, Avraham Fried, is a popular musical entertainer in the Orthodox Jewish community.-Career:...

, Dedi, Lipa Schmeltzer

Lipa Schmeltzer

Elazar Lipa Schmeltzer is an American Hasidic singer and composer. He is a headliner within Hasidic and Haredi communities worldwide and has been called "the Jewish Elvis". Schmeltzer has released 10 solo albums as of 2011...

, Mordechai Ben David

Mordechai ben David

Mordechai Werdyger , professionally known as Mordechai Ben David or MBD for short, is an American Hasidic Jewish singer and songwriter popular in the Orthodox Jewish community. He has been referred to as the 'King of Jewish music'. He has produced many popular Jewish albums over the past 40 years...

, Shloime Dachs

Shloime Dachs

Shloime Dachs is an American Orthodox Jewish singer who catapulted to stardom on the Orthodox Jewish music scene on the backs of several best-selling albums and innumerable wedding, concert and benefit performances in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...

, and Yaakov Shwekey

Yaakov Shwekey

Yaakov Shwekey is an Orthodox Jewish American recording artist, and musical entertainer. Through his father, he is of Egyptian and Syrian Sephardic heritage, although his mother is Ashkenazic.-Biography:...

Contemporary Music for Children

Many Orthodox Jews believe that "secular music" contains messages that are incompatible with Judaism. Parents often limit their children's exposure to music produced by those other than Orthodox Jews, so that they will not become negatively influenced by many of the more, in the parents' eyes, harmful outside ideas and fashions.

A large body of music produced by Orthodox Jews for children is geared toward teaching religious and ethical traditions and laws. The lyrics of these songs are generally English with some Hebrew or Yiddish phrases. Country Yossi

Country Yossi

Country Yossi is the name of a monthly, English-language Orthodox Jewish magazine, a radio show, a collection of musical albums, and children's books created, composed, authored, and published by Yossi Toiv, who took on the nickname "Country Yossi" and then transferred it onto the magazine, radio...

, Abie Rotenberg

Abie Rotenberg

Abie Rotenberg is a prolific Orthodox Jewish musician, composer and entertainer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has been producing music since the mid 1970s with a style which has been described as "soft and sweet" with a strong folk influence....

, Uncle Moishy, and the producers of the 613 Torah Avenue

613 Torah Avenue

613 Torah Avenue is a popular series of Jewish children's audio and video albums. The first title appeared in 1977.The series was created by Cheryle Knobel and Rivkah Neuman, of Brooklyn. Rivkah Neuman is the renowned Pre-1A teacher in Yeshiva Toras Emes Kamenitz in Brooklyn for many years...

series are examples of Orthodox Jewish musicians/entertainers whose music teach children Orthodox traditions.