page_title: Cross-beat
section_title: Adaptive instruments
hierarchical_section_title: Cross-beat / Adaptive instruments
caption_attribution_description: English: Mark Holdaway, Kalimba Magic
context_page_description: In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a specific form of polyrhythm. The term cross rhythm was introduced in 1934 by the musicologist Arthur Morris Jones. It refers to when the rhythmic conflict found in polyrhythms is the basis of an entire musical piece.
context_section_description: Sub-Saharan instruments are constructed in a variety of ways to generate cross-rhythmic melodies. Some instruments organize the pitches in a uniquely divided alternate array – not in the straight linear bass to treble structure that is so common to many western instruments such as the piano, harp, and marimba.
  Lamellophones including mbira, mbila, mbira huru, mbira njari, mbira nyunga, marimba, karimba, kalimba, likembe, and okeme.  These instruments are found in several forms indigenous to different regions of Africa and most often have equal tonal ranges for right and left hands. The kalimba is a modern version of these instruments originated by the pioneer ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey in the early 20th century which has over the years gained world-wide popularity.
  Chordophones, such as the West African kora, and Doussn'gouni, part of the harp-lute family of instruments, also have this African separated double tonal array structure. Another instrument, the Marovany from Madagascar is a double sided box zither which also employs this divided tonal structure. The Gravikord is a new American instrument closely related to both the African kora and the kalimba. It was created to exploit this adaptive principle in a modern electro-acoustic instrument.
  On these instruments one hand of the musician is not primarily in the bass nor the other primarily in the treble, but both hands can play freely across the entire tonal range of the instrument. Also the fingers of each hand can play separate independent rhythmic patterns and these can easily cross over each other from treble to bass and back, either smoothly or with varying amounts of syncopation. This can all be done within the same tight tonal range, without the left and right hand fingers ever physically encountering each other. These simple rhythms will interact musically to produce complex cross rhythms including repeating on beat/off beat pattern shifts that would be very difficult to create by any other means. This characteristically African structure allows often simple playing techniques to combine with each other and produce cross-rhythmic music of great beauty and complexity.
caption: Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba
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