What Are the Ritual Shofar Sounds?
These sounds or calls are made with the Shofar for ritual use: Tekiah – A long blast beginning in musical mid range and finishing as a high note. Shvarim – Three staccato blasts. The duration of all three together is the length of a tekiah. Truah – A long ululating or wailing sound. There are two main variants of the truah. One tradition uses nine seperate short calls in rapid sequence. The other is a long call with nine wavering ululations. Tekiah Gdolah – This is a tekiah that you continue as long as you can. It comes at the end of the series of calls. The tekiah Gdolah is usually the last shofar calls. It is a very long blast used to announce the end of the holy day of Yom Kippur. Soma shofar blowers can hold a tekiah gdolah for more than a minute. This call is the mark of a good “ba’al tokiah” and requires a lot of practice to develop your wind.
