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THE MUSIC OF
THE BIBLE REVEALED
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Please have patience while this page is loading; the content is worth the wait! |
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Shalom! I'm
John Wheeler, the editor and co-publisher of
The
Music of the Bible Revealed
(the English translation of
La musique de la Bible révélée,
authored by the late Jewish organist, composer and music theoretician Suzanne
Haïk-Vantoura of Paris, France).
This site uses the Book Antiqua True Type font for Windows. (Sorry, Macintosh and Linux users; I hope your default fonts will be satisfactory.)
You may scroll down to the table of links and explore this site --
but I invite you to enjoy my video presentations first... |
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The YouTube Playlists given below (also
accessible
here and
here) feature all the slideshows
and videos I
have created to date using
Windows Movie Maker --
including the Priestly
Blessing (Numbers 6:22-27) as performed by
SAVAE
(San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble) on their CD Ancient
Echoes (see the
Recordings
page on this Web site).
The video contains Tracks 8 and 16 from the CD. Some Web sites
in the U.S. and abroad offer the CD's tracks as MP3 files -- but
not these two tracks. To help get these tracks into the hands
of interested students of the work discussed on this site, I
have installed links to the two MP3 files
here and
here. |
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There are now two YouTube channels featuring my
videos and slideshows: my personal channel (Johanan
Rakkav) and my channel dedicated exclusively to video
slideshows based on Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura's work (The
Music of the Bible Revealed). I also have the
slideshows on Yahoo, Photobucket, MySpaceTV, MSN Spaces and
GodTube ("teamim" channel). |
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Copyright © 2008 By
John Wheeler (יוחנן רכב) -- All Rights Reserved. |
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| N.B.: A WinZip
(.zip) archive (17.9 MB) containing a PowerPoint Presentation (.ppt) and
sound files (.mp3) summarizing the historical and musical background to Suzanne
Haïk-Vantoura's work may be downloaded via
this link. |
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The Official Web
Site of Esther Lamandier (in
French) has a great deal of information on Mme. Haïk-Vantoura's work,
Mme. Lamandier's own activities as a teacher of biblical Hebrew and
Aramaic Christian chant, recordings produced by Mme. Lamandier
(including most of the recordings of Mme. Haïk-Vantoura's work that are
still in print), online ordering, and so on. |
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SHOFAR is
a vocal/instrumental group in Colombia which specializes in the
presentation and performance of Mme. Haïk-Vantoura's discovery. Its
artistic director is Javier Mejia Calderon. (I act as the group's U.S.
representative.) The photo on the
left is taken from
a small Web site illustrating the group's first concert (August
2004). |
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To contact the author by regular mail, write to the following address:
John Wheeler
2337 South Blvd., #B
Houston, Texas 77098-5263 USA
(The photo at left captures a house dating from the First Temple
Jerusalem of Jeremiah's time.) |
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Are you interested in the music of biblical times and places? Of the ancient world in
general? Then you're invited to join us in our Yahoo! Group:
The
Music of the Bible Revealed
Early music lovers, sacred musicians and singers, music theoreticians, historians, worship leaders, you name it
-- from the scholar to the listener, you're welcome to ask questions and give input here. |
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Help support this Web site!
We participate in Amazon.com's Associates Central Program. Every purchase of the following items makes a contribution toward
the maintenance of this site and our research efforts pertaining to biblical and ancient music. Just click on the
links and go straight to the appropriate pages on Amazon.com! |
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All of the MIDI
files used on this Web site have been retuned using the following freeware... |
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Scala is a powerful software tool for experimentation with
musical tunings, such as just intonation scales, equal and
historical temperaments, microtonal and macrotonal scales, and
non-Western scales. It supports scale creation, editing,
comparison, analysis, storage, tuning of electronic instruments,
and MIDI file generation and tuning conversion. All this is
integrated into a single application with a wide variety of
mathematical routines and scale creation methods. Scala is ideal
for the exploration of tunings and becoming familiar with the
concepts involved. In addition, a very large library of scales
is freely available for Scala and can be used for analysis or
music creation.
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To the left is my arrangement of
Psalms
46, as prepared by
Finale 2007, altered from equal temperament to
just tuning by
Scala,
and converted from MIDI to MP3 by Finale 2007. It is based on the
melody-only score as deciphered by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura and as published in
Les 150 Psaumes dans leurs mélodies antiques,
Tome 1
(Paris: Fondation Roi David, 1991). It includes parts for solo voice
and alternating choirs, mens' and boys' voices (after the fashion of
Second Temple performance on the Holy Days), valveless trumpet, high
and low cymbals, kinnor `al-hashsheminit
(on the assumption that it is a bass lyre) and nevel
`al-`alamot (a high-pitched, alto or "maidenly" lyre).
N.B.: If you cannot play this file using the plug-in to the
left, you should be able to play a MIDI version via
this link. Alternately, you may play a WMA
version via
this link. |
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Updated June 05, 2008 |
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