Indigenous Music of Australia Essay

Australia is a society of many an(prenominal) cultures from all over the world. The music of Australias natural stack represents a wide variety of music styles created by the ancient and Torres Strait Islander cultures. The music styles range from contemporary to styles that be fuse with European get goings. The music of these tidy sum has become an important disclose of the society and culture of the large number even though the ceremonies whitethorn guard changed.The customs dutyal forms include many aspects of performance and musical instrumentation which atomic number 18 unique to particular regions or Indigenous Australian groups there argon equally elements of musical tradition which are common or general by much of the Australian continent, and even beyond. (Indigenous Australian Music. Wikipedia The drop by the wayside Encyclopedia. 13 whitethorn 2007. 17 may 2007. http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian_music) The Indigenous populations of Aus tralia have larn from other travelers that have visited Australia for trade or other reasons.The settlement of Australia brought many changes to the way aborigine society functioned. It changed the land and how the people went about(predicate) their fooling lives. Before 1788 the original and Torres Strait Islanders inhabited Australia. In 1788 the key people lived on mainland Australia and the Torres Strait Islanders lived on the islands between Australia and Papua New Guinea, in what is presently called the Torres Strait (Dreamtime. net. au. Australian Museum. 17 May 2007. http//www. dreamtime. net. au/ autochthonic/index. cfm). many an(prenominal) of the Europeans that came to Australia misunderstood the original culture and created policies that did not benefit the people. They worked against the people by creating policies that benefited the farmers who moved across the continent using up natural resources and exploiting the indigen people for labor. The European colo nists did not understand the way the native people used the land for food and spiritual balance, thus causing many problems. The Indigenous cultures of Australia are one of the oldest in the entire world.Weve been here a long, long time ( Koori Mail. October 1996). Their ability to adapt over time has allowed them to last. The Aborigines talked of Dreamtime or the Dreaming, which was their version of a creation accounting. The Rainbow Serpent created the Australian world. As she moved back and forth along the land she created great rivers and from her personify the family lines, birds, and animals of Australia emerged. The Aborigines took great pride in the land because they believe that they emerged from it.They believed the Great communicable hard drink put the plants, animals, and people in their places according to the land forms and spirits surrounding them (FrogandToads Indigenous Australia. The Travel Around Company. 19 May 2007 http// naturalaustralia. frogandtoad. com. au/cultural. html). By the time Europeans arrived to colonize Australia there were more than 700 Aboriginal peoples. Each tribe had their own unique traditions, langu shape up, and customs. Traditional music of Australians indigenous people gives great meaning to their lives. There were three distinct types of Aboriginal music.The first was used for sacred ceremonies. The second type of music is semi-scared and is sing by men, with the women dancing. This music was used for initiation. The third type of music was not sacred and was used for entertainment. This is the only kind of music that can be performed by any person at any time. Music was used throughout the Aboriginals lives to teach what must be know about their culture, about their place in it, and about its place in the world of temper and super nature. Aboriginals encouraged their children at a very young age to dance and sing about everyday tasks.(Telford, Hans W. Australian Aboriginal Music. Santa Clara University. 20 May, 2007. http//www. scu. edu. au/schools/sass/music/musicarchive/AusGeneral. html). When the girl or boy reaches puberty he or she learns about totemic plants and animals of the clan and the mythology of their group, besides known as karma songs. Karma is the Aboriginal type of oral literature that tells a diachronic story of the people ( Indigenous Australian Music). These songs have specific singing formulas that distinguish them from other tribes songs..Because the stories come from oral tradition the music is learned my imitating elders and is passed without writing everything down. Before a man marries he learns more lively and fun songs that are entertainment for the tribe. When he marries and becomes a responsible tribe member he is to depend on the karma songs to take hold him strong. The man matures by the knowledge he acquires through song and when he is older his on her is based partly on his mastery of the inexplicable sacred songs of the tribe (Telford, Hans W . ). Some clans in Aboriginal Culture may share songs known as emeba, fjatpangarri, and manikay.These songs are directly tied to the story telling of Dreamtime, when the features of the land were created and named. When they sing the songs in the correct order the tribe could navigate vast distances. They relate the person who keeps the song with the land itself (Indigenous Australian Music). A traditional for of music is Bunggul. This style of music is known for its yearning lyrics, and is unremarkably stories about epic journeys. These stories continue or repeat by and by the music stops (Indigenous Australian Music). A death wail is also a very traditional music style in Aboriginal culture.It is a mourning lament performed in ritual fashion by and by the death of a family or tribe member. Roy Baker, a descendent of the Murawari tribe describes the death wail, You hear the crying and the death wail at night, he recalled, its a real eerie, frightening sound to hear. Sad sound t o hear them all crying. And then after the funeral, everything would go back to normal. And theyd smoke the houses out, you know, the old Aboriginal way. Aboriginal Australians used the resources around them to dumbfound their instruments. Most of their instruments fall into the idiophone class.An idiophone instrument is made from resonating material that does not have to be tuned (Encarta World English Dictionary). Their instruments consisted of two separate parts, which are stuck together to make a percussive sound. There are no string instruments in their culture, but they did use a skinned tick type instrument and wind instrument. Idiophones were the most(prenominal) common types of instrument and the most basic. The first example is sticks. Each singer would hold a mates of wooden sticks and clap them together. They could also be shaken to make a rattling sound.Boomerang clapsticks also were used in the same way. Aboriginal Boomerang Clapstickspic If there were no sticks, hand clapping or slapping sundry(a) parts of the body were substitutes for a p airmanship of sticks or clapsticks. A rale commonly accompanied songs. These rattles were made by holding bunches of seed ponds in ones hand. pic Seed rattle. The most well known of all the Aboriginal instruments is the didjeridu. The didjeridu is usually formed when termites hollow out a tree branch. The branches are usually cut to about 5 feet and are smoothed to make a suitable mouthpiece.When blown the didjeridu is a rich and complex sound. The function of the didjeridu is to contribute a constant drone on a deep not, someplace around D flat. The note is broken up in chantlike patterns and accents by the use of the players tongue and cheeks. Constant air pressure s maintained by simultaneously blowing out through the mouth and breathing in through the nose, known as cockroach breathing. Great stamina is needed to play the didjeridu. pic pic Most contemporary styles of indigenous Australian musi c come from the unification with European traditions.It also represents from the fusion with mainstream styles of music such as rock and country. Artists like The Deadlys give us an example of this using rock, country, and pop. Common traditional musical instruments such and the didjeridu and clapsticks are used to give a different feel to the music (Indigenous Australian Music). Overall, most ancestors stay true to their past roots of music. The remaining indigenous Aboriginal tribes still practice their culture and pass it down from multiplication to generation. The traditions have all remained the same even though European colonization changed the tribes forever.Even though there arent as many tribes remaining, the people of Australia keep their music alive in traditional and contemporary ways. deeds Cited Indigenous Australian Music. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. 13 May 2007. 17 May 2007. http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian_music (Dreamtime. net. au. Austr alian Museum. 17 May 2007. http//www. dreamtime. net. au/indigenous/index. cfm Telford, Hans W. Australian Aboriginal Music. Santa Clara University. 20 May 2007. http//www. scu. edu. au/schools/sass/music/musicarchive/AusGeneral. html.