`Oleh veyored ("ascending and descending") appears at first blush to signify an ascent of a major or minor sixth from the sustained degree. The form of the written sign suggests this. Yet here again, this cannot be the case -- for it frequently follows mehuppakh, the sixth degree of the mode!

This written sign, along with galgal that is so frequently associated with it, proved to be a major stumbling block to the completion of Haïk-Vantoura's research. Even given her ultimate reconstruction of the musical meaning of both signs, the similarity of form between `oleh veyored and mehuppakh proved a stumbling block to my own research.

Yet just as the written sign proved in the end to signify a rise to, then a descent from, a perfect or diminished fourth above the sustained degree, so the gesture proves to use four fingers in a particular motion to signify the same. The gesture begins with the right hand opening (from the rest position) and forming a sign like mehuppakh, then immediately closing to the rest position again. Thus the melody (once again) remains within its normal ambitus of eleven degrees.

Above, `oleh veyored is shown in association with silluq; on the left, with galgal. In Letteris (according to Haïk-Vantoura's table) it may be preceded by any degree of the scale (though galgal, silluq, merkha and mehuppakh are the most common), and it is always followed by merkha.

Updated July 23, 2010