Charm of Maori Song

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1057, 22 August 1930, Page 8

Charm of Maori Song

PROMINENCE IN MUSIC WEEK IT is indeed fitting that in a national festival of music, such as is being held throughout the Dominion at the present time, Maori music should find a prominent place. It is unfortunate that in the past a tendency to neglect the native music of New Zealand has been apparent.

More unfortunate still has been the despoiling of what is left of our native music by the influence of cheap modern music. It was left to Mr. Alfred Hill, the distinguished New Zealand-born musician and composer of Maori songs, to draw attention to the decay into which the music of the Maoris was falling, and to make a strong plea for its preservation. By bringing home to the public a realisation of the charm and inexpressible sweetness of this music, much good will have been accomplished during Music Week. Captain Cook, the first European to record intimate observation of the Maoris, relates that they sang songs with a degree of melody, and spent much time singing, while Forster, who accompanied Cook in his second voyage, remarked that the taste for music of the New Zealanders showed superiority in this respect to other nations of the South Seas. It was not music, however, as we know it, but rather chanted poetry. The Polynesian has that gift for apt expression and for drawing on nature for illustrating his theme that Matthew Arnold characterises as “the Celtic flash of genius,” as in a love song where the maiden describes "the fresh south wind feeding on my cheek.”

The Maori loved poetry and sacrificed much for it, and at great tribal gatherings, when the atmosphere was vibrant with passionate declamation or exulting boasting, orators, who had genius to catch a flash of inspiration and chant of tribal and personal achievements, were hailed with a fervour akin to the bards of the Celts.

In musical instruments the Maori had advanced but little beyond other primitive races, his range being limited to three or four types of trumpet, a whistle (or pipe), a simple form of Jew’s harp, and the pukuku (or rods). He had, however, acute hearing, an

accurate perception of musical time and a harmonious repertoire of ballads, love songs, lullabies and rituals. Many songs were handed down for centuries. t The emotionalism that forced verbal expression in poetry and chants finds another medium in dancing, the graceful poi in its several forms. The dances that have been preserved are more characteristically Maori, possibly, than the poetry-songs that we have saved, although, unfortunately, here also the same tendency to become Europeanised is also apparent. The general name for songs is Walata, and Alfred Hill seems to be the only composer who has succeeded in reducing to European notation some of the Maori music—primitive natural expression—not following marked paths or complying with artificial arrangements. Restraints, the tyranny of rules, was abhorrent to the Maori. When he had a mind to sing he frankly ignored all grammatical rules if it suited him, and syllable quantity became purely a matter of fancy. It is this waywardness with language, the adapting of circumstances to the mood, that marks Maori poetry-chants as different, and that makes literal interpretation into English an impossibility, and that definitely forbids any attempt to resurrect or to even preserve genuine Maori poetry or its rhythmic chanting. The preservation of Maori music depends largely upon the efforts of the natives themselves. Butin encouraging them to learn by ear the songs of their fathers and keep them free of the demoralising influence of cheap ukulele music, the European community can do much to assist. Programmes of Maori music such as is being given by the boys and girls of the two native colleges of Auckland at the Town Hall this evening are desc # ing of a very full measure of public support T.W.