Sunday Sermonette: Music lesson

Psalms 4 through 6 include instructions that give us little hints about the music. (The attribution to David is certainly fanciful, these were composed long after his death assuming he even existed.) The RSV translates some of the Hebrew terms which are not translated in the KJV, perhaps because back in 1611 they didn ' t have enough information. The term in Chapter 4 is " neginoth, " which is believed to refer to all stringed instruments. Some people have tried to assign it to a specific instrument, but the current consensus is that it is generic for strings. They probably didn ' t have bowed instruments, and perhaps not even instruments with fingerboards, so we ' re probably talking about harps and lyres. The Hebrew term in Psalm 5 is nehiloth, and this is the only place where it appears. It is derived from a word meaning " to bore " so it probably refers to perforated wind instruments, which the translators have rendered as flutes. While reed mouthpieces had not been invented, as far as we know, there may have been instruments more akin to recorders. " According to the sheminith " in Psalm 6 is probably an indication of key. Sheminith literally means eight or octave, but it is thought to refer to the lowest note sung by male voices, which would presumably be the tonic. However, we don ' t know what scales they used. Current Jewish liturgical music commonly uses what is called the phrygian dominant scale, which has a flat second: There are other scales used i...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs