This is an excellent book covering almost every aspect of not just chanting but understanding what all those lines, dots and wiggles surrounding the text in the chumash mean. There is a complete rundown of every te'am and how it fits into the context of the verses, and there is an example in a later section on how each te'am is chanted, basically in the Ashkenazi tradition. There is also a lot of interesting history of the development of the Torah scrolls and history on Torah and Tanakh traditions and also a section on pronunciation.

One word of warning. In order to understand the significance of the te'amim in the context of the verses, you need to have a fairly good knowledge of biblical Hebrew, both vocabulary and grammar. The context of the words in a verse determines which te'amim is assigned to their accents. This is, of course, separate from the te'amim that are assigned to indicate the vowels and pronunciation.

If you want to know absolutely everything about chanting Torah, Haftarah, or one of the Megillot, this book is for you. Every special circumstance is discussed, every rule of reading is discussed and the history and evolution of how and why we chant the way we do today is discussed. It is a wonderful resource for those who teach trope.

This book is a must for anyone seriously studying the nuances of cantillation. This large tome includes chapters on grammar, punctuation, and epistemology. I recently heard a lecture on the meaning of the trope (musical notation)in relation to the meaning of the Hebrew words; amazingly, they informed each other. Such information fills these pages. My son, who studies old manuscripts elaborating some of these topics, was thrilled to receive this book as a birthday gift. The author, Joshua Jacobson, is also the director of a chorale, specializing in Jewish music and his CDs are well worth the price. He's a master in many areas of music and I was fortunate to attend a conference recently where he was the keynote speaker. He's an outstanding scholar and a mensch.

It is a great book that finally shows that the cantilation is not arbitrary, how it contributes to the sense of the text, how
it works with grammar. Instead of teaching the Taamim as
a dogma, it actually shows how one can understand a text and
put the Taamim himself. It also reveals the grammar of the texts.
I bought four more for my friends.

I know of no book that can even compare to the scope and depth of this one, therefore I cannot give it anything but 5 stars. It is a thorough reference of the history and melodies of the cantillation, including a CD and musical notation of all cantillations used for public reading. It is appropriate for all levels of knowledge--from a beginner to an experienced reader.
The grammar he presents is not quite up-to-date and there are minor problems with the phonetic notation he gives certain letters and vowels. However, all in all it is quite excellent.