Shōmyō, a form of Japanese Buddhist liturgical chant, and Torah cantillation, the system of chants used to read the Torah in Judaism, are completely unrelated in their origins, and yet they are surprisingly similar. The shōmyō and Torah cantillation we will be dealing with are both monophonic, non-metric, and melismatic, and both are made up of short melodic fragments that are combined to form the chant.
Shōmyō is a type of Buddhist chant used in religious services by the Tendai and Shingon sects. It originated in India, but changed dramatically as it made its way across Asia to Japan in the fifth and sixth centuries CE. There are many different types of shōmyō. There is ryokyoku shōmyō (hard to remember) and rikkyoku shōmyō (easy to remember) . Shōmyō can be metric or non-metric, syllabic or melismatic. The lyrics can come from various Buddhist texts and can be in Sanskrit, Chinese, or Japanese. The example of shōmyō we will be looking at is the Shingon version of Shichi no Bongo. It is a Sanskrit san (hymn) of the non-metric, melismatic variety.
Cantillation refers to the melodies used to chant Hebrew Bible during Jewish religious services. It originated in the Middle East prior to the fifth century CE. It spread around the world with the Diaspora, and several different systems of melodies evolved in different parts of the world. These include the systems of the Ashkenazi (German and Eastern European) tradition and the Sephardic (Western European) tradition, as well as those that came from Egypt and Syria, Morocco, Baghdad, and Yemen. Within each system there are different melodies used for each part of the Bible and for certain holidays. The example we’ll use is the V’ahavta. It’s one of the central prayers of Judaism, and i...
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