Incredible

Music

Incredible flautists of the Solomons

These three discs are easily the best yet to be issued of south-west Pacific traditional music. They deserve to become widely known through sales and broadcasting.

Hugo Zemp has carried out a work of culture conservation of the utmost value. All over the Pacific we see the steady and depressing rate of loss of the traditional cultures as the old ones die off, the youngsters embrace western mores; a situation encouraged wherever traditions are undervalued in the face of change.

Perhaps a turning point has been reached at last. Perhaps through the very transistors and cassette players that have spread so many new things at the expense of the old, big men and chiefs are beginning to realise what powerful tools they will have if they turn them to their own use!

Now you can’t make a record or film commercially without money for equipment, technical know-how and a potential market. Exotic music has only recently become a great new wave of interest in the western world. Recording equipment steadily improves and becomes cheaper to buy (although the best is always dear). We are at the point where records and film-making are a practicability for the people them selves: as, for example, the all aboriginal film teams in the Northern

Territory.

But enthusiasm is not enough.

Given scientific knowledge and tech nical skill, we still need the detached viewpoint. An ethnomusicologist such as Hugo Zemp has this, because he is from another culture, and the ideal other side of the coin would be a recorded survey of, say, Parisian music made by a Solomon Islander.

The astonishing pan-pipe ensembles of southern Malaita are represented by the four types that exist today, one of which has two variants, A fifth type of ensemble disappeared several decades ago. When the third record of pan-pipe music is issued there will be a complete inventory of all the types of music, as recognised by the ’Are’are musicians themselves, tor these ensembles.

The pan-pipe ensembles use instru ments having from 5 or 6 to 14 and

more pipes, ranging in size from less than your little finger to longer than your leg. The compass is therefore quite wide, and fully exploited in the pieces. The compositions are often descriptive of things, such as spiders or birds or the bush, or they may have a story as a “programme”, or they may signal intentions such as how long the playing will last—a few hours or all night? The musicians show mastery in rhythmic control, speed variation and breathing and blowing techniques. The 'Au Tahana appears to require a “flutter” effect emanating from the diaphragm! An eminent Australian flautist commented that he had never imagined such a variety of playing methods existed as is employed by the ’Are’are.

If the musical scales used may sound “out of tune” to some western ears at first, a little familiarity will ease this and the listener will delight in the lively rhythms, the criss-cros sing of parts, the supple melodies, the surprising forms, the delicious dis sonances contrasted with “perfect” intervals—a constant display of rich musical inventiveness. These pan-pipe ensembles have surely one of the world’s great musics, seen as a triumph of imagination over the simplest resources.

According to the notes, the music recorded on the Polynesian outlier Ontong Java was taught, rehearsed and recorded in a mere fortnight.

Hugo Zemp’s arrival stimulated the revival of music that had not been heard, he says, for 25 years. Poly nesian traditional music, through longer and more extensive contact, has in so many places been replaced entirely by ersatz hula or the

übiquitous Moody and Sankey. It is fortunate a record such as this has been made, and one hopes that it will stimulate a re-evaluation of music and dancing in the rest of Polynesia.

In spite of the short time for pre paration, the Ontong Javanese give

obviously confident, disciplined and

enthusiastic performances. This would reinforce Alan Lomax’s comment that cantometric profiles are very similar for Polynesian traditional and westernised musics: you can’t change all the culture traits! Many of the songs are of an erotic or derisory character, or belong to rituals and games no longer performed. Many meanings have been lost, both in the literal sense of what the words tell and the functions of music and dance.

The three recordings are ex ceedingly well recorded, attractiveiy packaged, supplied with fairly com

prehensive notes and supplemented

with pertinent photographs. The

records are a model of what should be done on a large and urgent scale throughout the Pacific. —Peter Crowe, Conservatorium of Music, Sydney.

Melanesian Pan-Pipes: The ’Are’Are

people of Malaita, BSIP. Vol. I: Ensembles ’Au Tahana and ’An Paina. Vol. II: Ensembles ’An Keto, ’Au Taka’iorl and ’Au Taka’iori ni Marau. Two 12 in. LP discs. Vogue International LDM 30104 and 30105 (Collection Musee de I’Homme; recorded and edited by Hugo Zemp 1969-701. Notes (in English and French), 6pp. and 6pp., photos.

Polynesian Traditional Music: Of

Ontong Java, BSIP. Women’s, men’s and mixed choruses with stamping tubes, slit drum, beaten blocks and hand-clapping.

One 12 in. LP disc, Vogue International LD 785 (Collection Musee de I’Homme; recorded and edited by Hugo Zemp 1969 1.

Notes (in English and French), 6pp., photos.