Cantillation is a system of marks, called ta'am (plural: te'amim) in Hebrew and trop in Yiddish. They appear either under, over or next to words in Hebrew Biblical text to convey what I call the "Three P's":

• punctuation - how the words in each verse are grouped into phrases;
• pronunciation - which syllable in each word is emphasized;
• presentation - how each word is chanted.

As a system of punctuation, biblical verses are broken into phrases of one or more words, with each word punctuated with a ta'am (trop) mark (in rare instances, two te'amim (trop) marks). Each phrase can be "classified" according to the ta'am that is found on the last word. At the Cantillation Café, ta'am phrases are colored according to these classifications.

The links below lead to six "dictionaries" of Ashkenazic ta'am (trop) tunes. These musical models are notated according to the tradition presented in "Chanting the Hebrew Bible" by Dr. Joshua Jacobson and chanted by Hazzan Linda Sue Sohn.