Aboriginal Songs Research Articles

Ngiyampaa ngiya guthigu ngiyali (Ngiyampaa Words for Talking About Songs): Creating Mayi (Aboriginal) Language for Musicology in a Language Revitalization Context

Mayi (Aboriginal) songs of central-western New South Wales hold power from Country and are connected to a line of Ancestors that can be felt when listened to. However, Aboriginal songs of Australia are often analysed through Western musicology and Western musical notation systems, which may not be appropriate to the contexts for Mayi Language, Country, and Culture in which the songs originate. Mayi in New South Wales are revitalizing their Languages after surviving cultural and Language genocide. In this situation, how can Mayi analyse songs within our own cultural understanding and our own Language while relearning and revitalizing our Language? How can analysing our songs support this Language revitalization? As a Mayi singer researching historical singers and speakers of Ngiyampaa and neighbouring Languages, I suggest a more suitable form of notating and analysing songs to represent them in their cultural context and attempt to revitalize specialist Mayi musicology terms and Language for discussing and passing on Mayi songs.

“That is Why I am Telling this Story”: Musical Analysis as Insight into the Transmission of Knowledge and Performance Practice of a Wapurtarli Song by Warlpiri Women from Yuendumu, Central Australia

AbstractInsights into the knowledge, performance, and transmission of songs are pivotal in ensuring the survival of traditional Aboriginal songs. We present the first in-depth musical analysis of a Wapurtarli yawulyu song set sung by Warlpiri women from Yuendumu, Central Australia, recorded in December 2006 with a solo lead singer accompanied by a small group. Our musical analysis reveals that there are various interlocking parts of a song, and this can make it difficult for current generations to learn songs. The context of musical endangerment and the musical analyses presented in our study show that contemporary spaces for learning yawulyu must consider the complex components that come together for a song set to be properly performed.

‘Puranguwana’ (‘Perishing in the Sun’) as sung by Patrick Jupiter Smith, Jack Gordon and Marie Gordon

Across Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal songs are often attributed to the spirit world rather than as compositions by the living. Deceased ancestors give songs to people and such a recipient is described as the %nder of a song. !is is particularly evident in ‘Puranguwana’ (‘Perishing in the Sun’), a song of the public ceremonial genre known by older men and women at Balgo and Bililuna communities in the south-east Kimberley in Western Australia. !e protagonist in the song is a Pintupi man called Yawalyurru Tjapangarti, who dies of thirst on Sturt Creek Station on Jaru country. !e %rst-person perspective in the lyrics is common in Aboriginal song, rendering the singers active participants in the event. !e words of the song are relatively easy to identify, which is consistent with the song’s purported recent origin. Yawalyurru is both the subject matter of the song and the song-maker. According to oral history, Yawalyurru’s spirit gave the song to the Jaru people before returning to its Pintupi country. ‘Puranguwana’ also resembles a song that was recorded at Balgo in 1981 by ethnomusicologist Richard Moyle. In 2019, Balgo residents were unfamiliar with the earlier recording and, on listening, regarded this as a di$erent song to ‘Puranguwana’. While not identical, an analysis and comparison of both their text and music suggests that the songs are cut from the same cloth. !is cloth re&ects the region’s multicultural history where both desert and Kimberley linguistic groups have co-resided since the 1930s. !e article aims to increase appreciation of the artistry of Aboriginal song, the complexity of its creation, and their value to Aboriginal history.

Text-setting in Kaytetye

Singing is a universal human activity. Across the vast range of song traditions throughout the world, native speakers have consistent intuitions about how the syllables in a given line of song text should be set to the tunes and/or rhythms within their various song traditions. This paper presents an Optimality Theoretic analysis of text-setting in a set of ceremonial songs traditionally sung and passed on orally by groups of Kaytetye-speaking women in Central Australia. Australian Aboriginal songs are renowned for the degree to which they diverge from speech. For our analysis, we use a computational method to exhaustively generate all permitted ways sung forms may diverge from their spoken equivalents along with all possible ways each form may be set to rhythm. We show that the seemingly idiosyncratic nature of text-setting strategies in this song set can be accounted for through a relatively generic set of constraints (even when thousands of competing candidates are considered), reflecting many of the fundamental processes that govern the interaction of language, meter, and music.

Indigenising Australian music: authenticity and representation in touring 1950s art songs

ABSTRACT Aboriginal-influenced compositions have been central to Australian art music practice since the 1960s, and key to conceptions of an Australian style. While in other creative arts practices (for example, dance and visual arts) appropriative practices have largely become unacceptable, or at least highly contested, compositions influenced by Aboriginal music have retained a central role in art music composition. In this article, I trace this practice back to touring post-war performances of the ‘Aboriginal songs’ of Alfred and Mirrie Hill, Arthur S. Loam and Victor Carell from Carell and Beth Dean’s ‘Dance and Song around the World’ shows in the early 1950s. I suggest that the performance of these songs familiarised audiences with a notional ‘Aboriginal’ sonority that has continued to influence composers and their audiences. Dean and Carell’s claim to authoritative representations of Aboriginal music and dance has had ongoing reverberations throughout Australian performance history, disconnecting Indigeneity from individual Aboriginal people (historical and living) and their traditions. Although ultimately these representations have failed to replace the performance of culture by Aboriginal people, reductive portrayals of Aboriginal musical characteristics remain persuasive.

Central Australian Aboriginal Songs and Biocultural Knowledge: Evidence from Women's Ceremonies Relating to Edible Seeds

Songs encode rich knowledge of the social and ecological worlds of Aboriginal people living in the arid interior of the Australian continent, a desert with one of the most variable rainfalls in the world. People have shaped the ecology of this region in continuous feedback loops over many generations such that there is nowadays a complex system of interdependence between cultural practices and the local ecosystems. Singing traditions are an integral part of the spiritual health of the ecosystem and the means by which biocultural knowledge is carried on over many generations and through shifting social and ecological contexts. To illustrate this, we draw on traditional women's totemic songs relating to edible seeds from the Warlpiri and Anmatyerr Aboriginal groups in Central Australia. Edible seeds, predominantly acacias and grasses, once played a major role in sustaining the populations of these desert regions. They are one of five locally named food classes. We show how songs and their performance practices interact with techniques of seed production and knowledge systems connecting people to biota, the land, and their totemic religion. Traditional songs carry forward biocultural knowledge; yet, these songs and knowledge are under increasing threat because few contexts exist for their continued performance as mass media and new musical genres (e.g., country, pop, gospel) take center stage across Central Australia.

Orchestrations of consciousness in the universe: Consciousness and electronic music applied to Xenolinguistics and Adnyamathanha aboriginal songs

Abstract This article deals with the reframing of the concept of universal mediated communication on a global scale. Subjects include the following: the universe has a conscious force field at all its scales, requiring continuous inter-scale communication of information; the field exhibits distinct electromagnetic frequencies associated with the building blocks of life; and advances in the technology of sound production with electronic synthesizers can be applied to study mechanisms of such universal communication. The question being addressed is how electronic synthesizers can be used to create sonic xenolinguistic expressions when composing with sonified frequencies obtained from bio-organisms, human protein structures, phonemes and various types of interstellar frequencies that include, but are not limited to, gamma bursts, pulsars and neutron stars. The objective is to construct sonic xenolingusitic expressions that can act like feedback loops within the field of consciousness. These sonic expressions can include anomalous cognitive, emotive or spiritual experiences that may be emerging out of the universal field of consciousness in real time. Xenolinguistics is a hypothetical language used to communicate with other sentient beings in the universe. The rationale for composing sonic xenolingustic expressions is the belief that the universe is considered conscious and that there is a field of consciousness existing throughout the universe that in principle is also instrumental in how communication can evolve with extraterrestrials. Outlines of other attempts at extraterrestrial communication by other researchers will be offered based on current literature. The probability that other life forms have established some mode of information exchange that is detectable and that, in return, may be able to create a form of communication to respond will be covered. It is postulated that various energy fields existing before and after the creation of our universe interacted with one another becoming abiotic, and then over time, formed even more complex structures. It is these complex structures that were then able to communicate essential information for maintaining their stability and survivability by using specific signalling frequencies. It is hypothesized that first life in the universe emerged within an already existing field of information and that our consciousness is thereby able to establish communication with other forms of consciousness in the universe. It is on this basis that a novel scientific and philosophical paradigm is considered in which the universe is conceived of as an active information matrix that can entertain potential extraterrestrial communication. In this framework, the present article will offer a new approach to orchestrated electronic sounds as a means to such communication. By integrating quantum physical properties into that sonic framework, a new study emerged on how sonic xenolinguistic elements can be incorporated into electronic composition techniques. This new framework may produce new algorithms for musical expression that not only represent an innovative future of electronic music but may also be crucial in the formulation and induction of new states of consciousness that will enable humankind to directly participate in the further becoming of the universe as a result of the evolution of this universal field of consciousness.

Murtuka Yirraru: Automobility in Pilbara Song-Poems

Arguably one of the most enduring icons of modernity is the automobile. The innumerable songs about motor vehicles are testimony to this status. This article examines Pilbara Aboriginal (marrngu) songs about the murtuka (motorcar). Focusing on a particular style of song known as yirraru to Ngarla people of the De Grey River area in Western Australia, I explore a range of questions concerning the impact of automobility on marrngu lifeworlds. Is the ‘freedom of the road’ a value historically shared by marrngu and walypala? Or is the marrngu passion for automobility evinced in these yirraru simply an adaptation of precolonial values, beliefs, and behaviours associated with mobility? This is not an ethnomusicology article; I treat yirraru as narratives, narratives that convey something about the relational in marrngu modes of orientation and engagement with the motor vehicle. Using archival and ethnographic data, I argue that murtuka song-poems show that marrngu regarded motor vehicles as instrumental in their own efforts for autonomy in the decades in which these yirraru originated (1920–1960s). Ultimately I consider what the enthusiastic embrace of the murtuka by marrngu might say about the nature of sociocultural difference, similarity, and marrngu and walypala boundedness in the Pilbara.

Absolute Tempo in Multiple Performances of Aboriginal Songs: Analyzing Recordings of Djanba 12 and Djanba 14

songs that are not notated but transmitted through live performance are of particular interest for the psychological study of the stability of tempo across multiple performances. While experimental research points to highly accurate memory for the tempi of well-known recorded music, this study asks whether there is any evidence of absolute tempo in a performance tradition that does not draw on such reference recordings. Fifty-four field recordings of performances of one Aboriginal dance-song, Djanba 14, were analyzed. Results showed that over a span of 34 years, performance tempi deviated positively or negatively, on average, by 2%. Such small tempo variation is similar to JND thresholds to discriminate the tempi of isochronous sequences. Thirty-five field recordings of another song from the same repertory, Djanba 12, deviated in tempi by an average of 3%. We discuss the musical, psychological, physical, and cultural factors likely to shape such temporal stability.

Songs from the Inyjalarrku: The Use of a Non-translatable Spirit Language in a Song Set from North-West Arnhem Land, Australia

The Inyjalarrku songs are a set of traditional songs from North-West Arnhem Land, Australia, composed entirely in spirit language. This spirit language is dream received, and used only in song. Like many such languages of the region, Inyjalarrku is semantically opaque (non-translatable). Non-translatability in Aboriginal song languages has been widely reported across Australia, with many variations. Inyjalarrku songs are stable, rather than improvised, and have a recognizable vocabulary of words and phrases which resemble the ordinary/spoken/everyday language of the region, but which are not associated with meaning in any conventional sense. Inyjalarrku takes on the aesthetic properties of spoken language in terms of phonemic and syllabic inventory, but adapts these to serve the unique requirements of language in song. By examining the nature of the language used in the Inyjalarrku songs, and comparing it to the spoken language of the region, Mawng, this article explores the nature and implications of the use of non-translatable language in Aboriginal songs.

Linguistic Imagery in Warlpiri Songs: Some Examples of Metaphors, Metonymy and Image-schemata in Minamina Yawulyu

The language of Aboriginal songs is often described by both researchers and Aboriginal people as being unintelligible to those who do not have the ritual knowledge to understand it. The Minamina yawulyu performed by Warlpiri women from Yuendumu community, Central Australia, is one such song cycle that is described in this way. However, it does not display many instances of ritual or archaic words or phonological skewing that would clearly differentiate this language from everyday Warlpiri. Instead the Minamina yawulyu uses regular language in a connotative way such that it is unintelligible without knowledge of the symbolic associations intended. In this way ritually knowledgeable people who understand the connotations of this language are required to interpret these songs giving them a degree of control over how this knowledge is transmitted. In this paper I will present some examples of metaphor, metonymy and image-schemata along with accompanying exegesis provided by Warlpiri informants. In highlighting this symbolic way of using language I will show that Warlpiri song language uses familiar physical and social experiences in Warlpiri people's lives such as those around landscape, kin relations and physical appearances and movement, to connote emotive responses to country and associated ceremonies. This paper will demonstrate the role of song in passing on the complexity of religious knowledge and also the ways in which ritually knowledgeable people control its transmission.

SOME ABORIGINAL WORDS AND SONGS OF THE MACLEAY RIVER, N.S.W.

MankindVolume 1, Issue 8 p. 206-207 SOME ABORIGINAL WORDS AND SONGS OF THE MACLEAY RIVER, N.S.W. First published: January 1934 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.1934.tb00043.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume1, Issue8January 1934Pages 206-207 RelatedInformation

Returning to and from “Innocence”: Taiwan Aboriginal Recordings

For many, the Taiwan aboriginal music world begins and ends with pop group Enigma's con troversial single, Return to (1993).' Interweaving the voice of Amis singer Difang with layers of electronic sounds, Innocence was exotic and ambient, and it also proved catchy enough to serve as an advertisement theme song for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Through this song, much of the world came to hear Taiwan aboriginal music for the first time, without realizing what they were hearing. Di fang (1922-2002) discovered his stardom through a friend who had caught the song on radio, and he asked EMI to be credited on the album (Interview, August 10, 2000). When his request was turned down, he filed a lawsuit against Enigma in 1997. The parties reached an out-of-court settlement in 1999. Various reports on the case by Guy (2002), Taylor (2000), and Yvonne Lin (1999) provide views on the role of ethics in negotiating social justice and copyright law. Enigma sampled Di fang's voice without authorization from him; the group drew its sample from a 1978 recording of a weeding song collected by Taiwanese ethnomu sicologist Hsu Tsang-houei.2 Hsu deposited this and other Taiwan aboriginal recordings in Paris's Maison des Cultures du Monde in 1988. Some of the 1978 recordings were in turn issued, together with new material, on the Inedit album, Polypho nies vocales des aborigenes de Taiwan (1989). After hearing this album, Enigma sought and obtained permission from Maison to use a sample and paid a transference fee (Wong 1999). No one, however, bothered to determine the identity of the original singer or consider his intellectual property rights until Difang made the claim himself. The politics of assigning blame and claiming compensation was tricky. Was Difang's name acknowledged on the Inedit release or even on Hsu's original field recordings, some of which featured ensembles with variable soloists? The answer to the former was no Reports varied as to whether royalties paid by Enigma were eventually channelled to the original singer. Taylor and Guy also point to Difang's fame, gained after his Olympic exposure. The Amis farmer was soon signed by the Taiwanese label Magic Stone Music to release two albums, Cir cle of Life (1998) and Across The Yellow Earth (1999). These albums, put together by Deep Forest producer Dan Lacksmann, featured elec tronica remixes reminiscent of the problematic Innocence This story is relatively well known, though most versions depict Enigma and EMI as using strong-arm tactics. That Innocence was a turn ing point in the Taiwan aboriginal record indus try is without doubt. Difang's subsequent albums won accolades at Taiwan's equivalent of the Grammy Awards, the annual Golden Melody Awards. His success inspired a revival that saw aboriginal singers release their own albums. At the same time, it sparked debates about cultural ownership: some aborigines wondered whether the court settlement should have been made not to an individual but to the Amis people. The case also generated heightened awareness of copy right protection among village singers, now wary of singing to researchers and eager to claim au thorship of aboriginal songs previously released on old vinyl records. Indeed, a thriving Taiwan aboriginal record industry had existed from the 1960s. Prior to Innocence, the aboriginal music scene boasted a cassette dynasty, whose largely aboriginal clientele spanned southern and east ern rural Taiwan. Aboriginal listeners are not the only audi ences of aboriginal recordings today. Chang Huei-mei, a superstar in the Mando-pop world whose fan base extends beyond Taiwan, is of

Artfully hidden: Text and rhythm in a central Australian aboriginal song series1

Traditional songs from Central Australia have a text set to an unvarying rhythm, which is in contrast to songs from many other parts of Australia. This has led many researchers to regard text and rhythm of Central Australian Aboriginal songs as ‘two facets of the same structure’. In creating this structure the question is whether the setting of text to rhythm is random and thus non-metrical, or whether it is based on regular alignment of textual features with rhythmic features. If the latter, a further question arises as to what particular features of text align with rhythm. In this article I show that the setting of text to rhythm is sensitive to syllable structure of spoken language in a public women's song series from Central Australia called Akwelye.

Australian Aboriginal Songs

Australian Aboriginal Songs

Australian Aboriginal Songs

Within recent years much aboriginal song material has been gathered, mainly in Central and Northern Australia. The scientific value of this material can be readily understood; but its artistic merit has been the subject of much controversy. The present article has been written with a view to pointing out certain features of the Australian songs—features whose appreciation may enable listeners to obtain more enjoyment from aboriginal recordings. My remarks are based on my own collection, which was gathered in Central Australia; but they are true in a general sense of most Australian songs as far as we know at present.

ABORIGINAL SONGS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA

ABORIGINAL SONGS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA

Research Items

ANTHROPOMETRY IN CENTRAL ATJSTRALIA.—A first instalment of the results of the University of Adelaide ExpeditimVentral to Central Australia at the beginning of 1927, which appear in Vol. 1 of the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, gives a general intUuctory account of the expedition and its method of working, and deals more specifically with the results of the anthropometric observations by Dr. T. D. Campbell and Mr. C. S. Hackett. Two halts were made, one at Ross Waterhole, 40 miles north- east of Oodnadatta, and one at Stuart Town, Alice Springs. The natives observed were Arunta with a few Luritcha, numbering 57 in all, 44 male and 13 female, and with a few exceptions all were full blooded. In addition to the anthropometric measurements, a number of investigations were carried out, including a study of aboriginal songs, and the expedition was fortunate in obtaining a kinematograph film of a circumcision ceremony as well as other films of technological interest. A striking method of boo- motion involved in an extreme case of platycnemia provided a film of exceptional interest. The means of the anthropometric measurements given are: stature 11330 mm, head length 1896 mm., head breadth 142 mm., nose height 52.1 mm., and nose breadth 48.6 mm. Cephalic index 74.7, facial index 8.13, nasal index 93 mm. It is to be noted that the head is slightly broader than that of other records. The larger size of the nose is probably due to the greater preponderance of males. Comparing these results with other records by various workers, it is now possible to give a generalised picture of the Australian as a dolichocephalic, platyrhine with pronounced supra-orbital ridges and protruding lips, in colour dark brown, with low to deep waves on the hair, which is occasionally curly but never frizzy.