Aboriginal Songs
HERE is something wildly primitive ‘" about the Australian aboriginal songs presented by Clement Q. Williams. It is a long step from the first attempts of mankind to make vocal music to the raucous rendition of the latest popular song; in between these extremes, somewhere, fits in the chant of the native, and of this type of music the aboriginal song seems a strangely individual example. It is not sophisticated-indeed the very piano accompaniment, subdued though it was, seemed an anachronism; but it is not simple either, the few intervals and notes of the chant being so combined and fitted to the words as to give intense effect to the varied emotions expressed. The aboriginal song is a much purer type of folk-tune than the song usually regarded as the typical proeduct of the Maori, and it is time someone presented us with a few examples of the original Maori chant, with its quarter-tones, in order that we might see just how unprimitive and unoriginal our so-called "Maori" music has nowadays become. As yet the Australian aboriginal song doesn’t seem to have been overwhelmed by the weight of European harmonic and melodic idiom -or perhaps Mr. Williams has been longsighted enough to collect his material in
quarters where the music of the aboriginal people is still pure and unadulterated.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19471017.2.21.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 434, 17 October 1947, Page 11
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220Aboriginal Songs New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 434, 17 October 1947, Page 11
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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