Psalm Singing

After looking at Sharon's website I am like, wow. No exclamation point, just wow in a dull envious voice. I spent a few weeks looking all over the internet for Psalms in Hebrew. Everything I find is either paraphrased, or combined with other (uninspired) words, or too modern (I mean really modern, at high speed with pounding drums), or too short (one or two verses), or they repeat certain lines over and over, or else they are extremely complicated. Hardly anything suitable for congregational singing. Why don't the Jews sing their own Psalms? Beats me. It is a wonder that the Psalms can sit there in the Bible all these centuries and not be sung in their original language. For once I am thankful for my English-Irish-Scottish roots. I have all 150 Psalms, translated from the Hebrew, and edited no more than necessary to make them singable.
I have found a lot of really neat music, but what I am looking for is Psalms that an average singer in an average congregation can sing, without repeating lines, and hopefully without adding too many li-li-li's and na-na-na's. (Although I love li-li-li's and na-na-na's, and they sometimes make the tune come out right.)
I am trying to collect as many tunes as I can that have already been done. Most of what I find are short songs or chorus. Sometimes it's just one verse, or maybe two, with a refrain sung over and over. Not bad, but not enough.
I am trying to write tunes for Psalms but haven't had much success yet. I have about 9 tunes that I have started, but I'm not really satisfied 8 of them. I also can't really tell if they work, since I don't know the language very well. But I am still learning, both the language and how to write music, and I hope to get something that will work, and get the idea going, and then hopefully someone will come along that can do better.
The Psalms in Hebrew are very rhythmical, but they don't fit into an exact meter, such as C.M., L.M., or 10.10.10.10., or iambic pentameter, etc.
For an idea of how hard it is, try to write a tune for one of our (unmetricized) English Psalms.
The last two weeks I have spent studying the Psalms. The Hebrew of the Bible is quite different from modern Hebrew, and that of the Psalms especially. I got an attack of OCD which I hope has about run its course--I copied all the Psalms plus the first chapter of Genesis and made them into a list. I have been going through the list, sounding out the words and removing duplicates. Hebrew verbs are often written with prepositions attached to the beginning or pronouns attached to the end and such stuff, so it can be hard to tell if the first letter is a preposition or part of the word. I have so far narrowed it down from 15,000 to 4,000 words or groups of words. One group of words might include
"I heard, you will hear, hearing, to hear, they hear, hear me, hear him."
Or "house, the houses, my house, your houses, thy house, in the house, home-ward."
Now that I've spent an unreasonable amount of time on my list (but it was really helpful, since it solidified some of what I only half-learned in Ulpan), I hope to spend a reasonable amount of time finding the roots and learning the words. That will make it easier to write music.

Modern Art

I like modern art. Sometimes. I like it because I can see in it what I want to see. If I don't see what I like, I just don't look.
Any comments on this? Tell me what you see, what you like or don't like. Then I'll tell you what I see.

The Wall and the Shrine

Looking towards the Wailing Wall, called that because here the Jews mourn the destruction of the temple.
As is typical of Jerusalem, you have potential great beauty obstructed by power cables and security fences. The signs require you to show proper respect, and inform you of the importance of this wall. People come all the time to pray, and will put into the cracks of the wall slips of paper with their requests in hopes that God will answer. They also gather on special occasions to pray for mercy and to give thanks. It is the closest to the "holy of holies" that you can get, and the only remnant of the temple.





Something. At the national museum. You're not allowed to take pictures insde. Some of the pictures are connected to an alarm that goes off if you stand to close to them.


Next to the museum is the shrine of the book. Contains Dead Sea Scrolls and the Aleppo Codex.


In front of the shrine is in interesting mobile that moves in the wind. If you like that sort of thing. (I do.)

Yad Va Shem

Yad Va Shem is a memorial to Holocaust victims. The name means "a memorial and a name," from Isaiah 56:5, "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." This is one of the most important places you should visit if you come to Israel.

This building is bigger than it looks. You go through room after room, and in every room you learn things you can hardly believe but you need to know



This monument says "I will put my breath into you, and I shall set you upon your own soil" from Ezekiel 37:14

I Can't Catch Up

I'd really better get busy and post all my old pictures. I should put them up right away while I remember what they are. But when necessary, one can always ask Jeshurun.
Here we go with pictures of the botanical garden at Hebrew University. It wasn't blooming much, but it was still pretty. I'd love to go back now or in the next couple weeks in it's in bloom. But of course, I won't have time.

Views from the university.




Eucalyptus trees.

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus up close. I never noticed, when I was there, all the red berries on the ground.


A very ordinary sedum, but it's nice to have everything labeled.








I like the way this tree is holding on.


Moss and ferns--with labels! If I had several lives to live, in one of them I'd be a botanist.


What you can't tell from the picture about this grass is that's over 15 feet tall.




Figs.


Caves.


Caves for birds?


With all these pictures, and all the different places we have been to, it makes it seem like I live a very interesting life. In actuality it is same-o, same-o, week after week, until someone comes to visit. Then we cram as much as possible into one day. Or in this case, two weeks. A most glorious two weeks it was, with Jeshurun here.

Horns and Horses

And tons of other stuff. The Israel National Museum. At one point they told us "no photos," so this is only a hint of what's there.

Do you know what this is? If you don't, ask Jeshurun.

"All the pretty little horses" (MWB)



Or if you prefer...