AUSTRALIA - Aboriginal - Songs from the Northern Territory cd1

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Songs From the Northern Territory 1: Music From Western Arnhem Land

Artist/Collector:

Alice Moyle

Label Information:

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS): AIAS 1 CD

Media Type:

CD

Year:

Recorded 1963; Released 1997

Availability:

AIATSIS



Notes: As defined here, Western Arnhem Land of the Northern Territory

extends beyond the northern and western boundaries of the area formerly

known as the 'Arnhem Land Reserve'. To the north it includes the Coburg

Peninsula, Croker and Goulburn Islands and the Liverpool River region;

to the south, it extends from the west coast to Katherine and further east.

Most of the recordings transferred to disc 1 were made at Oenpelli,

north of Kakadu National Park. The remainder are from Bagot, near Darwin.

White settlements were established at isolated places in Western Arnhem

Land in the early years of the nineteenth century, increasing rapidly

after 1872, the year Darwin became linked by telegraph with Australian

capital cities and Britain.

Despite the resulting dispersal and fragmentation of tribes and language

groups in this region and ultimate disruptions to ceremonial life, a few

song types have persisted, some of which are to be heard on this disc.

Associated with spectacular kinds of dancing which were often admired and

reported in the writings of early observers, they are accompanied by the

didjeridu, a name which seems to have been used first by non-Aboriginal

people in the Darwin area. They are still sung by a diminishing number of

creative musicians whose presence is sought, over a large area, whenever

a corroboree is held.

The didjeridu of western Arnhem Land is used as a patterned, bassdrone

which-at the time these recordings were made-varied according to song

type and to the singer's place of residence. There are many Aboriginal

names for this instrument, some of them now losing currency like the

languages to which they belong. In the Oenpelli region the Aboriginal name

for didjeridu is magu; among groups in Darwin and surrounding districts,

it is kanbi and kanbak.

Singers heard here represent the following language groups: Gunwinggu,

Gunbalang and Djawan (tracks 1-6); also Yiwadja, and some of the smaller

groups traditionally located south of the Daly River which were referred

to collectively in the 1960s, as Wagatj (tracks 7-13).

In Gunwinggu, a dance song is borg or gunborg, in the Daly River languages,

it is wongga, also spelt wangga.

Western Arnhem Land singers either inherit their songs from their fathers

and older male relatives, or they 'find' them for themselves in dreams.

Dreamed songs are believed to be communicated in this way by the spirit

of a deceased singer. Whatever their believed origin, these songs are

usually similar, stylistically, to others in the vicinity.

Characteristic of Western Arnhem Land dance songs is a comparatively wide

vocal range of pitch (approximating sevenths, octaves, even twelfths) within

which there are 'tiled' or overlapping descending passages many of them

resembling scales or modes.

A Western Arnhem Land singer prefers to select the pitch of his didjeridu

accompaniment to match his song. A player, therefore, may have more than

one instrument lying near at hand. Dance songs in this region almost invariably

begin with the droning sound of the didjeridu to which the singer then adapts

the range of his song's melody.

The usual order of entry of the sound components into a Western Arnhem Land

dance item is therefore: didjeridu first, then the singer's stick beats and

finally the singer's voice. At the end of the same song item, final stick beats

synchronise with calls and shouts from the dancers.

Also characteristic of this musical region is the behaviour of the onlookers

who clap their hands in time with the singer's stick beats and shout with approval

(oi!) when the item finishes.

In Western Arnhem Land, the melodic lines or contours are divided into sections.

Within each section there may be contour variations, but each one follows a

descending path towards the pitch of the drone. During the breaks between the

sections in the vocal part, the didjeridu and stick beating continue their binding

web of sounds.

The singers themselves do not always know the meaning of the words they sing and many of their song utterances appear to be little more than syllabic patterns with intervening glides. That there are exceptions, however, is demonstrated by the sample on this disc of Gunbalang singing (track 6a), song words of which are to found transcribed and translated below.



tags: yirdaki yidaki didjeridu mago clapsticks corroboree



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