- From ancient time, there has been a desire among the Jews to read scripture in the manner described in Neh 8:8:
And they read from the book, from the law of God clearly; and they gave the sense, so the people understood the reading
- To read "clearly" before a multitude of people requires a type of speaking voice that is somewhat "affected" in relation to a normal speaking voice. In addition, the voice has to raise and lower in pitch in order to convey the MEANING of the words so that it will be clearly understood by many people gathered together in a large open space. In Jewish tradition, certain "conventions" developed regarding this type of reading which resulted in a type of SPEECH-SONG, complete with accents written above the words which the reader would follow in reading and interpreting the scripture. This SPEECH-SONG is known as CANTILLATION. It is believed by some that from these kinds of markings a kind of musical notation eventually evolved. See Bibliography: Ancient Jewish; Early Christian.
- The earliest reference to CANTILLATION is in the Babylonian Talmud (6th cent. CE) in which R. Johanan refers to "tunefullness" in regard to the "modulation" of the scripture. This indicates that by the time of the writing the "tuneful" reading of scripture had long-passed the stage of mere syllabic plainsong. The cantillation must have become MELISMATIC with groups of notes attached to more important syllables.