Trope+Lesson+One


 * What is Trope?**

From ancient days, biblical texts were taught orally by singing them with their own unique melodies. These melodies helped clarify meaning and punctuation of the texts, and helped the student more readily learn and remember them. A system of hand signals for telling a reader what melody to use for particular passages was used through the Middle Ages. The melodic symbols that appear in modern biblical texts are based on these hand signals, and are known as//Tropes// or //Ta'amim.//

**Trope serves three functions in the text of the Tanach.** The mark of sign lets us know how to sing the word.
 * 1. Melody**

The marks help with pronunciation by telling us where to put the stress in the word, and where the syllable breaks are
 * 2. Pronunciation**

It is also used as a form of punctuation, which the Torah scroll does not have otherwise. It is like an ancient form of commas.
 * 3. Punctuation**

Take a look at this Hebrew text:  The text has the letters and vowels that you are familiar with. In addition to the vowels, many biblical texts include the Trope symbols that tell the reader how to sing the words. Here is the same text with the trope symbols added:  The first trope symbol we will learn is called ETNACHTA,  and it looks like this: The ETNACHTA symbol looks a little like a wishbone and is always found below the word with which it is sung.
 * ETNACHTA phrases **

When we learn trope symbols we learn them in families or groups. These groups are patterns that the trope symbols come in. The group gets its name from the last symbol in the group. In this lesson you will learn the sound of these tropes, and you will learn the melody of all four tropes in Etnachta family:

MERCHA media type="file" key="Mercha.mp3" width="240" height="20"

TIPCHA media type="file" key="Tipcha.mp3" width="240" height="20" MUNACH media type="file" key="Munach.mp3" width="240" height="20"

ETNACHTA media type="file" key="Etnachta.mp3" width="240" height="20"


 * PAY ATTENTION to the __shape__ of each of the trope marks and __how they sound__. **

These tropes do not appear in just any order. The tropes that serve the words of ETNACHTA phrases appear only in these combinations below.


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">HOME PRACTICE: **
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">PLEASE LISTEN TO AND PRACTICE EACH COMBINATION! **

media type="file" key="Tipcha Etnachta.mp3" width="240" height="20"

media type="file" key="Tipcha Munach Etnachta.mp3" width="240" height="20"

media type="file" key="Mercha Tipcha Etnachta.mp3" width="240" height="20"

media type="file" key="Mercha Tipcha Munach Etnachta.mp3" width="240" height="20"

media type="file" key="Etnachta.mp3" width="240" height="20"