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BIBLICAL AND HEBREW MUSIC. 31
Cymbals;—there seems to be no doubt that the Hebrews possessed various instruments of percus-sion of divers shapes.
Trumpets;—apart from the ram's horn, and other curved horns which were called trumpets, there also existed a straight trumpet of more artificial construction. " Make thee, two trumpets of silver: of one piece shalt thou make them." Numbers >x: 2.
It is probable that the sistrurn, the guitar, and pipes, were also possessed by this nation; about nineteen instruments are mentioned in the scriptures, but some of the meanings are so dubious that they have been translated by the general terms, harp, lute, psaltery, timbrel, etc.
How many different opinions are held, upon Hebrew music may be judged from the fact that the word " <Seia/i," which was probably a musical term, and is found in so many of the psalms, has given rise to the most vehement and fruitless controversy. Hesychius says that it means a chai.ge of rhythm, in the chanting; Alberti denies this, as it sometimes occurs at the end of a psalm, where certainly no change is possible: some have suggested that it meant a modulation from one key to another; Forkel, however, thinks that the Hebrews were not so far advanced in the science of music as to understand modulation, but Fetis upsets Forkel by remarking that the modulations, though not harmonic, might have been purely melodic, by the introduction of tones, foreign to the key, as occurs in many eastern melodies.
Herder says also " the Orientals even of oui |
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