AUSTRALIA - Aboriginal - Songs from the Northern Territory cd3

CLICK ON starinar TO GET MORE TRIBAL AND INDIGENOUS MUSIC.

BE A MEMBER OF A GLOBAL SeeDeRS TRIBE. MoRE CoMING SooN. ENJoY!







Songs From the Northern Territory 3: Music From Yirrkala and Milingimbi, North-Eastern Arnhem Land

Artist/Collector:

Alice Moyle

Label Information:

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS): AIAS 3 CD

Media Type:

CD

Year:

Recorded 1963; Released 1997

Availability:

AIATSIS



Notes: For the purpose of music description, Eastern Arnhem Land of

the Northern Territory is divided here as follows: the north-eastern

sector including offshore islands; the eastern sector extending along

the coast south as far as the Roper River; and the Groote Eylandt

archipelago, north-west of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Field recordings reproduced on this compact disc were collected in

the north-eastern sector at Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula and

Milingimbi on the Crocodile Islands off the north coast. The Aboriginal

communities at these two localities, together with the people on

Galiwin'ku (previously called Elcho Island) have, in the anthropological

literature, been referred to as the Murngin (WL Warner) and Wulamba

(RM Berndt). More recently they have become known as the Yolngu, from a

local word meaning 'people'.

The artistic talents of the Yolngu were soon to become widely known and

admired. Their bark paintings are now to be found in many Australian

galleries and in galleries overseas. Two of their leading painters in the

early 1960s, both of the Rirratjingu clan, are to be heard as singers in

this series of compact discs (see discs 3 and 4).

Yolngu children excelled as singers and dancers at the Darwin Eisteddfod,

an annual 'top end' event which, in the 1960s, drew many Aboriginal entrants

from communities within and beyond Arnhem Land.

Since that time, there have been changes. Mission stations and government

stations are now Community Centres administered by the Aboriginal people

themselves and many have preferred to live more or less permanently on

outstations situated within traditional territories or homelands.

Item characteristics of Eastern Arnhem Land clan songs performed and

recorded in 1960s-all of which were sung by men-are summarised here as

follows: (1) a didjeridu accompaniment which utilises two tones differing

widely in pitch (the interval between the higher or overblown tone and

fundamental often sounding close to a tenth but varying according to the

shape and length of the hollowed branch); (2) a narrow vocal range of

pitch (compare them, for instance with Western Arnhem Land songs) which

rarely exceeds a fifth or sixth and may be less than a second; (3) clearly

audible song words which are translatable, meaningful and appropriate to

relevant clan territories and related myths; and (4) the occurrence of an

unaccompanied vocal termination (UVT), or termination of a song item by

voice or voices alone, after the accompanying instruments have ceased.

Good examples of this fourth item characteristic are to be heard on this

disc (Track 11) and disc 4 (Track 1).

Song refrains may consist of repeated strings of words and syllables,

a prolonged single syllable or a repeated pattern of vocal sounds

(for example, bird calls). These calls are incorporated into the particular

sectional or phraselike structure of many item sequences performed in

Eastern Arnhem Land.

As part of the music survey mentioned above, several visits were made to the

north-eastern sector and a fairly comprehensive coverage was obtained of songs

by men, women and children. I also made recordings of a number of ceremonial

events. An extract from one of these is to be heard in tracks 1-5 on this disc.



Manikay.com