(b Düsseldorf, 16 Aug 1930). Israeli and French ethnomusicologist. After studying the french horn with Jean Devémy at the Paris Conservatoire (1951–4), he was first horn in the Israel Broadcasting Authority SO in Jerusalem (1958–63). In 1963 he founded the Musée National Boganda at Bangui in the Central African Republic, and was its director until 1967, and on returning to Paris he undertook musicological studies with Chailley at the Sorbonne (1968–73). He entered the CNRS in 1968 and his subsequent career has been with that institution. In 1993 he was appointed lecturer at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He was an associate professor at Tel-Aviv University (1979–83) and music director of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (1980–82). He has been awarded the Grand Prix International du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros (1971, 1978 and 1985), and the silver medal of the CNRS (1984). In 1992 he won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music literature.
Simha Arom has devoted himself chiefly to the systematic study of oral traditional music, particularly the polyphonic and polyrhythmic music of Central Africa. He has devised new methodological procedures including a process, first used in 1972, for the analytical recording of polyphony and polyrhythm, enabling such music to be transcribed and analysed, and an interactive experimental method, introduced in 1989, for the perception of the organization of musical scales in cultures of oral tradition. His theoretical works concentrate on the structuring of time in music, particularly the relationship between metre and rhythm, on the modelling of orally transmitted music and on the cognitive aspects of musical practice in such cultures.
‘Essai d’une notation des monodies à des fins d’analyse’, RdM, lv (1969), 172–216
Conte et chantefables ngbaka-ma’bo (République centrafricaine) (Paris, 1970)
‘Eléments pour une analyse opérationnelle des monodies vocales dans les sociétés de tradition orale’, Les langues sans tradition écrite: Nice 1971, 391–415 [with Eng. summary]
‘De la chasse au piège considérée comme une liturgie’, The World of Music, xiv/4 (1974), 3–19
with J.M.C. Thomas: Les mimbo, génies du piégeage, et le monde surnaturel des Ngbaka-Ma’bo (République centrafricaine) (Paris, 1974)
‘The Use of Play-Back Techniques in the Study of Oral Polyphonies’, EthM, xx (1976), 483–519
with F. Cloarec-Heiss: ‘Le langage tambouriné des Banda-Linda: phonologie, morphologie, syntaxe’, Théories et méthodes en linguistique africaine: Yaoundé 1974, ed. L. Bouquiaux (Paris, 1976), 113–69
‘New Perspectives for the Description of Orally Transmitted Music’, The World of Music, xxiii/2 (1981), 40–60
‘The Music of the Banda-Linda Horn Ensembles: Form and Structure’, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, v (1984), 173–93
Polyphonies et polyrythmies instrumentales d’Afrique Centrale: structure et méthodologie (Paris, 1985; Eng. trans., 1991)
with F. Alvarez-Pereyre: ‘The Holistic Approach to Ethnomusicological Studies’, The World of Music, xxviii/2 (1986), 3–13
‘Systèmes musicaux en Afrique subsaharienne’, Canadian University Music Review/Revue de musique des universités canadiennes, ix (1988), 1–18
‘Une parenté inattendue: polyphonies médiévales et polyphonies africaines’, Polyphonies de tradition orale: Royaumont 1990, 133–48
‘A Synthesizer in the Central African Bush: a Method of Interactive Exploration of Musical Scales’, Für György Ligeti: Hamburg 1988 [HJbMw, xi (1991)], 163–78
‘A la recherche du ‘temps’ perdu: métrique et rythme en musique’, Les rythmes: Cerisy-la-Salle 1989, ed. J.-J. Wunenburger (Paris, 1992), 195–205
‘Une voix multiple: entretien avec S. Pahaut’, Cahiers de musiques traditionnelles, vi (1993), 184–96
with F. Alvarez-Pereyre: ‘Ethnomusicology and the Emic/etic Issue’, The World of Music, xxxv/1 (1993), 7–33
‘Intelligence in Traditional Music’, What is Intelligence?, ed. J. Khalfa (Cambridge, 1994), 137–60
with U. Sharvit: ‘Plurivocality in the Liturgical Music of the Jews of San’a (Yemen)’, Jewish Oral Traditions: an Interdisciplinary Approach, Yuval, vi, ed. I. Adler (Jerusalem, 1994), 34–67
‘Su alcune impreviste parentele fra le polifonie medievali e africane’, Polifonie: procedimenti, tassonomie e forme: Venice 1995, 163–79
with G. Léothaud and F. Voisin: ‘Experimental Ethnomusicology: an Interactive Approach to the Study of Musical Scales’, Perception and Cognition of Music, ed. I. Deliège and J. Sloboda (Hove, 1997), 3–30
Ndroje Balendro: musiques, terrains et disciplines: textes offerts à Simha Arom, ed. V. Dehoux and others (Paris, 1995) [incl. full list of writings]
JEAN GRIBENSKI