Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980), was an English

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

and

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

who worked in

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

during the early 20th century. Jones became a priest in 1923 and served as a curate in Kent before travelling to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in 1929 with the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa. He was stationed at St Mark's School in Mapanza, a community in the Southern Province of present-day Zambia (called Rhodesia at the time). He is best known for his

ethnomusicological Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

work, particularly his two-volume '' Studies in African Music''. He made an important contribution to the literature with his work in African rhythmic structure. In 1934 he introduced the technical term ''

cross-rhythm In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a specific form of polyrhythm. The term ''cross rhythm '' was introduced in 1934 by the Musicology, musicologist Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980). It refers to a situation where the rhythmic conflict fou ...

'': Formulae of movement, phrases or motifs are combined in that way, that their starting place, main accents and, or beat reference points "cross", that is, that they do not coincide. In ''Studies in African Music'' he says that "African children love to turn any physical movement into song". In other words, he claims that rhythm comes from physical movement. He is also remembered for his controversial theories on scales and the music of the

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...

, which he claimed migrated from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. Almost one hundred of Jones' acetate field recordings are part of the

British Library Sound Archive The British Library Sound Archive, formerly the British Institute of Recorded Sound; also known as the National Sound Archive (NSA), in London, England is among the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word ...

(number C424).Music in Africa website, ''Arthur Morris Jones Africa Collection''
/ref>

Bibliography

* Jones, A.M. ''Africa and Indonesia: The Evidence of the Xylophone and Other Musical and Cultural Factors.'' Leiden: Brill, 1964. * Jones, A.M. "African Hymnody in Christian Worship." Gwelo: Mambo Press, 1976. * Jones, A.M. ''African Music''. Rhodes-Livingstone Museum Occasional Papers; No. 2. Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia:

Rhodes-Livingstone Institute The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute (RLI) was the first local anthropological research facility in Africa; it was founded in 1937 under the initial directorship of Godfrey Wilson. It is located a few miles outside Lusaka. Designed to allow for easier ...

, 1943. * Jones, A.M. ''African Rhythm''. London:

International African Institute The International African Institute (IAI) was founded (as the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures - IIALC) in 1926 in London for the study of African languages. Frederick Lugard was the first chairman (1926 to his death in 19 ...

, 1954. * Jones, A.M. ''Studies in African Music''. 2 vols. London: New York, 1978. * Jones, A.M., and L. Kombe. ''The Icila Dance, Old Style. A Study in African Music and Dance of the Lala Tribe of Northern Rhodesia''. Roodepoort, South Africa: Published by Longmans, Green and Co. for African Music Society, 1952.

References

External links

British Library Sound Archive catalogue

Listen to Arthur Morris Jones recordings

JStor website
''Concepts of African Musical Theory'', article by Laz E. N. Ekwueme, published in Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Sep., 1974), pp. 35-64 1889 births 1980 deaths Protestant missionaries in Zambia British ethnomusicologists People associated with the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute English Protestant missionaries 20th-century British musicologists {{ethnomusicologist-stub

Bibliography

See also

References

External links