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Jean Jenkins (17 March 1922 - 12 September 1990) was an American-born ethnomusicologist who spent most of her career based in the UK and travelled all over the world to collect sound recordings, slides and musical instruments.
Jean Jenkins was born in Arkansas and studied anthropology and musicology in Missouri during the 1940s. In 1949 she arrived in Britain with her first husband, and continued her studies at the University of London, at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Jenkins travelled widely throughout Africa and Central Asia between the 1950s and 1980s creating exceptional recordings, and taking detailed notes. She was a key figure in laying the ground for the contemporary world music scene, and as well as insight into traditional music from around the world, her archives reveal a larger than life woman, who fled McCarthy, was friends with Haile Selassie and who was meticulous, packing silk handkerchiefs and girdles whenever she travelled. [1] In 1954 she joined the staff of the Horniman Museum in South London. During her time at the museum she built up the musical instrument collections from developing countries, conducted important fieldwork in Ethiopia (throughout the 1960s) and created a centre for ethnomusicology. Meanwhile, she married her second husband and obtained a British passport in order to avoid being deported to the US for her trade union work. The marriage was dissolved in 1961.
A strong-willed and energetic woman, during the 1960s and 1970s Jean Jenkins travelled extensively throughout Southern Europe, Asia and Africa. Among many other places, she visited Uganda (1966 and 1968), Malaysia (1972), Indonesia (1973) Afghanistan and Mongolia (1974) Algeria and Morocco, and Turkey and Syria (1975). During these extended trips she collected a wealth of information in the form of sound recordings, slides and photographs, and also kept regular diaries. In addition, she collected a vast range of musical instruments. In 1977, the Tangent Records of UK issued two albums titled "Vocal Music from Mongolia" (Volume I) and "Instrumental Music from Mongolia" (Volume II) by Jean Jenkins' recordings. The albums containing rich, diverse and unique traditional vocal and instrumental music from Mongolia were highly valued not only in Mongolia, but also in Europe and the United States.
After curating the 1976 exhibition "Music and Musical Instruments for the World of Islam" at the Horniman Museum, thereby introducing the collections to a much wider audience, in 1978 she left the museum and continued to work independently in Edinburgh, France and Germany. In 1983 she curated the important exhibition "Man and Music" at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh. She died in London on 12 September 1990.[ citation needed ]
In 1980 the National Museum of Scotland acquired Jean Jenkins's own collection of musical instruments and in 1990 the museum was bequeathed her entire archive of field recordings, indexes, diaries and 13,000 slides and photographs. [1] Together, they form a unique record of musical traditions which, in some places, have disappeared.
The clavichord is a stringed rectangular keyboard instrument that was used largely in the Late Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was mostly used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces sound by striking brass or iron strings with small metal blades called tangents. Vibrations are transmitted through the bridge(s) to the soundboard.
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score", which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, but in musical theatre and in pop music, songwriters may hire an arranger to do the orchestration. In some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all and instead compose the song in their mind and then play, sing or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable sound recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music.
Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context, investigating social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions involved other than sound. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investigate the act of musicking through various immersive, observational, and analytical approaches drawn from other disciplines such as anthropology to understand a culture’s music. This discipline emerged from comparative musicology, initially focusing on non-Western music, but later expanded to embrace the study of any and all different kinds of music of the world.
Given the vastness of the African continent, its music is diverse, with regions and nations having many distinct musical traditions. African music includes the genres amapiano, jùjú, fuji, afrobeat, highlife, Congolese rumba, soukous, ndombolo, makossa, kizomba, and others. African music also uses a large variety of instruments across the continent. The music and dance of the African diaspora, formed to varying degrees on African musical traditions, include American music like Dixieland jazz, blues, jazz, and many Caribbean genres, such as calypso and soca. Latin American music genres such as cumbia, salsa music, son cubano, rumba, conga, bomba, samba and zouk were founded on the music of enslaved Africans, and have in turn influenced African popular music.
The rich and varied music of Sudan has traditional, rural, northeastern African roots and also shows Arabic, Western or other African influences, especially on the popular urban music from the early 20th century onwards. Since the establishment of big cities like Khartoum as melting pots for people of diverse backgrounds, their cultural heritage and tastes have shaped numerous forms of modern popular music. In the globalized world of today, the creation and consumption of music through satellite TV or on the Internet is a driving force for cultural change in Sudan, popular with local audiences as well as with Sudanese living abroad.
The music of Bahrain is part of the Persian Gulf folk traditions. Alongside Kuwait, it is known for sawt music, a bluesy genre influenced by African, Indian and Persian music. Sultan Hamid, Ali Bahar and Khaled El Sheikh are among the most popular musicians from Bahrain.
The Horniman Museum and Gardens is a museum in Forest Hill, London, England. Commissioned in 1898, it opened in 1901 and was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Modern Style. It has displays of anthropology, natural history and musical instruments, and is known for its large collection of taxidermied animals. The building is Grade II* listed.
Islamic music may refer to religious music, as performed in Islamic public services or private devotions, or more generally to musical traditions of the Muslim world. The heartland of Islam is the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia. Due to Islam being a multi-ethnic religion, the musical expression of its adherents is vastly diverse. Indigenous traditions of various part have influenced the musical styles popular among Muslims today. The word "music" in Arabic, the language of Islam, is defined more narrowly than in English or some other languages, and "its concept" was at least originally "reserved for secular art music; separate names and concepts belonged to folk songs and to religious chants".
Little is known about the exact origin of the music now known as the blues. No specific year can be cited as its origin, largely because the style evolved over a long period but blues is inarguably a Black American art form as it is noted "it is impossible to say exactly how old blues is - certainly no older than the presence of Negroes in the United States. It is native American Music, the product of the Black in this Country or to put it more exactly the way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if African Captives had not become American Captives. Ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik traces the roots of many of the elements that were to develop into the blues back to the African continent, the "cradle of the blues". One important early mention of something closely resembling the blues comes from 1901, when an archaeologist in Mississippi described the songs of black workers which had lyrical themes and technical elements in common with the blues.
The hun is a Korean Xun-like globular flute made of baked clay or other ceramics.
Cynthia Tse Kimberlin is an American ethnomusicologist. She is the executive director and publisher of the Music Research Institute and MRI Press, based in Point Richmond, California. Her primary area of expertise is the music of Africa, in particular Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Laura Boulton was an American ethnomusicologist. She is known for the many field recordings, films and photographs of traditional music and its performances and practitioners from Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika. Boulton also collected traditional musical instruments around the world. In her work with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) during the Second World War, she is recognized as being a pioneer for women who work in the film industry.
Erdenechimeg Luvsannorov is an ethnomusicologist and researcher.
Pierre-Jean Croset is a composer, an interpreter, a stringed-instrument maker and a French musicologist.
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies.
Tage Nielsen was a Danish composer. He studied with Rued Langgaard and worked for Danish Radio as well as being a professor at the Danish Academy of Music.
Poul Rovsing Olsen was a Danish composer and ethnomusicologist.
Carole Pegg, sometimes Carolanne Pegg, is a British folksinger and fiddle player, and an anthropologist of music (ethnomusicologist).
William Hamilton Bird was an Irish musician who was active in India during Company rule. He was a pioneer in transcribing Indian music into western notation.
Amanda Villepastour is an Australian ethnomusicologist and former professional musician. She is best known for being the keyboardist of the Australian new wave band Eurogliders between 1980 and 1987, and for her 21st-century research work and publications on Yorùbá music in Nigeria, and Afro-Cuban religious (Santería) music in Cuba.
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