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Are there any online sources for learning how to read the Sephardi Te’amim of Tehillim? While I can find recordings, I can’t find any list or descriptions of the exceptions and such—for example, when a Pasek is silent, or when a Ravia becomes Gadol, etc.
Even a non-internet source would help immensely—you can even record yourself explaining them. I’m just looking for a way to learn.
Reinhardt Flender: Hebrew Psalmody a Structural Investigation, for an overview of Psalm cantillation among Jews of North Africa and the near east.
...And for an understanding of how to recognize the signs, https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12jzK6S9HojcCzTf4BOy8XEcD3NrO28WA
It's an Ashkenazi book, so forgive his ignorance of Sephardi and Yemenite practice. But nearly everything he has to say theoretically about the te'amim of the 21 and 3 books is pretty spot-on. You will simply have to substitute his melodic examples and speculations. There is also the issue that non-Ashkenazi psalm-cantillation can use a verse-melody... a kind of semi-improvisational or stock tune that is recited over words with minor te'amim.
But the performance practice of Psalm cantillation is at once simple and subtle and very deep and complicated. I've spent some time trying to understand the underpinnings of the various traditions, albeit as an aside to my main focus of assembling a database of melodies for the 21 books. Isaac Treuherz Montague is far more adept on this topic than I am. But he hasn't published anything on it yet.
I recommend checking out an introduction that I wrote to the topic of Psalm-cantillation on Cambridge's Digital Bible Research forum:
https://forum.cdbr.org/t/basically-how-does-hebrew-psalm-chant-work-summary-conversation-starter/742
But click here for a goodle doc version of the thread, if you don't want to have to sign up for their forum: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pMiTmUkKBjEU3cMG4UGfjd7u39DByqMc05J8tAXPMzg/edit?usp=drivesdk
Just to be clear, there is no "the Sephardi" te'amim for tehillim. Each community reads tehillim in their own way. There is a Sepharadi Yerushalmi method of reading psalms as part of the service that's pretty standardized, but it's not a technical proper reading.
The Aleppo Syrian Community of New York has published an entire class with recordings, examples of every ta'am with its name and melody, and anything else you would need to learn how to chant according to their tradition. You can find it here:
