MAORI SONG AND MUSIC

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 29, 3 February 1928, Page 2

MAORI SONG AND MUSIC

(By

JOHANNES C.

ANDERSEN

=~ HE Maori was always | given to song. He had song for all occasions, | great or trivial. He Siem had war-songs, lovesongs, watch-songs, and the various songs had their various styles, as distinctive as our own. One very noticeable thing about their melodies is their very small compass; some are within one tone; few are more than four tones. The result is a certain monotony to ears accustomed to the wide range of tone in European songs; and in many of their melodies we can hardly detect melody at, all. The fact is, the Maori had no such thing as melody as we know it. He ‘ had no tune apart from the words. The words were the important thing, and the words were sung more or less in the natural speech tones, perhaps

exaggerated a little, perhaps little more than a monotone. Their kerekia, or incantations, were all in measured monotone, somewhat like our | religious intoning, but more like the quantitative recitative of old Greek poetry. _ The songs were so well known that all could join in, and did join in; and every orator would now and again break into apt song during the course of his speech, the listeners all joining in, for all were sure to be familiar with the song begun by him. Mr. Elsdon Best collected from one old man and his wife over four hundred songs which they knew, words and melody; and they were not reckoned a couple who knew much in the way

of song. How many of us could sing a quarter as many? The Maori had few musical instruments. Strange to say, with the exception of the great war-gong, he had no drums, and the drum is a favourite instrument with uncivilised, or little civilised people, helping, as it does, in the appreciation of rhythm; and the Maori had a superb sense of rhythm, far more exact than our own. He had a war-trumpet, and a shell-trumpet, but these were not used as musical instruments; rather as signalling instruments. He had two kinds of flute, and it is from these that we have gleaned what we know of their technique and melody. One, the Koanau, was an instrument somewhat like our flute, except that

it was blown from the end, and had only two to five side-holes. The tones produced differ in interval in all flutes examined, no two agreeing, so that one is forced to conclude that the Maori recognised no definite arbitrary intervals, as we do not in our speech tunes. Every flute was made to play a particular song; if it were wished to play another song on that flute the holes had to be altered, and many flutes are found with the holes so altered. Moreover, when the flute was played the words of the song were played on it; that is, the flute spoke; and on the Maori flute even the European ear is able to catch at least-some of the words. This explains why the Jew’s harp was a favourite instrument with the } , , ' , | |

Maori; he was able to speak on it; and two lovers would sit side by side, each with a Jew’s harp, softly exchanging confidence on their instru-ments-actually saying it with music. There are stories which tell how lovers conveyed messages by means of flutes; and when Hinemoa swam to Tutanekai, it was because of what ‘he was saying to her on the fiute. So of song-birds, the Maori particularly liked the ones that seemed to he saying something, that is, the ones whose voices approached human speech. It is well-known how readily the Maori took to our music, and how he excels in it; so that he enjoys two kinds of music: ours in addition to his own. An intermediate form has sprung up, too; European tunes taken by the Maori and altered slightly in melody and in tune, so that they are neither the one nor the other, but are extremely pleasing both to Maori and to European; and it is these tunes that often are regarded as Maori music, and are referred to as Maori music. Songs like Alfred Hill’s "Waiata Poi’ have used Maori rhythm, but not Maori melody; their restricted melody we cannot enjoy, nor can it be expressed in our musical notation; but their rhythms we can thoroughly appreciate and enjoy. To appreciate the delicacy of their laments and love-songs, many of which are pure poetry, needs as long and minute a training as it does to appreciate the highest classical | music.