Music in the Bible (Psalms)

From Wikiversity

This Is Just A Brief Study On the Music that Can Be Found In the Psalms of the Bible.

    The Psalms were the hymnbook of the Old Testament Jews. 

Most of them were written by David King of Israel. Other people who wrote Psalms were Moses, Solomon, ect. The Psalms are very poetic. They have a flow to them. You could put a metronome to them and recite them in time. In many Bibles a musical phrase will be written above the chapter. Example: Psalm 61 "Italic textTo the chief musician upon Neginah, A psalm of David" Neginah , plural Neginoth , in the Bible, direction for the musical accompaniment of a psalm. Psalms 4, 6, 54, 55, 61, 67, 76. The actual sheet music doesn't exist today. But one can still put music to the psalms today. The method to follow is this. The commas and periods are rest marks. Shape your melody and chords to represent the emotions given by the words. Repeated phrases are found often in music today. They are for emphasis. Pay attention to phrases like "and all Israel cried". This is the call for more voices to join in.