Ukulele
HAT was the music enjoyed by the natives of Hawaii in their pre civilised state? Does any of it survive? Did they use the ukulele, and if so, did it bear any resemblance to the weapon now bearing the name? I ask these questions because I have recently heard several programmes or concerts of modern Hawaiian music; and as far as I can (continued on next page)
(continued from previous page). judge, the modern Hawaiian repertoire consists of more or less indefinite variations on one tune, itself possessing about three notes. From this I except the "Hawaiian War Dance," which appears to have some relation to native realities. Has Tin Pan Alley utterly destroyed the genuine native music? Or does some of it persist, unnoticed, unrecorded, and unsung? The modern tourist, there is no doubt, has been far more destructive of the native customs of the Pacific than the blackbirder and the missionary combined, He asked only for glamour and titillation, so that he commercialised and prostituted realities; and native music, which once possessed all the interest and excitement of the product of another culture, is now nothing more than a vehicle for the surrender of thought and the passage of money from the mindless to the mindless.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450727.2.18.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 318, 27 July 1945, Page 8
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Tapeke kupu
209Ukulele New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 318, 27 July 1945, Page 8
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