Practicing Your Torah and Haftarah Portion

To practice your portion, always start out by chanting the trope signs from the trope sheet.  This helps you to get into the proper frame of mind.  Do use the CD to help you make sure you are chanting correctly.

When you are ready to work on Torah as well as Haftarah chanting:

1. Do make sure that you chant the trope sheet for Haftarah before beginning work with Haftarah, and that you chant the Torah trope sheet for Torah before beginning Torah work.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to practice Torah and Haftarah chanting at the same time.  Practice Cantor Sharon’s material in between times, do homework, take a break, talk to a friend, walk your dog, do something, but separate those practices in your mind!!
3. Realize that you will be “reading” Torah from a real, live scroll; not from the notebook we are using.  To be ready to read from Torah with confidence do the following:

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  • Master the chanting of three phrases a day.  Each phrase should be repeated, perfectly at least 10 times from the side of the page with the vowels and trope signs. (Your CD is vitally important to ensure that you are indeed chanting the phrase correctly here).
  • Immediately switch your focus from the side with the vowels, to the Torah side, and chant the phrase.
  • Determine if you did it correctly.  If yes, continue with phrase two and points a, b and c.  If no, repeat points a, b and c for phrase one.
  • Every day, review previously learned phrases to keep them up to level, and add the next three phrases.
  • Do practice in this phase on a daily basis!!!!  One of the biggest mistakes people make, is to think that by one or two mega-session practices it will be possible to learn the chanting properly.  Mega-sessions don’t create comfort with chanting or confidence: DAILY PRACTICE IN SMALL AMOUNTS TO BUILD THE WHOLE STEADILY DOES CREATE ALL THE COMFORT AND CONFIDENCE YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR FIRST PUBLIC READING OF TORAH A SUCCESS AND A THRILL!!!!!