Maori Pageant

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 3, 2 August 1929, Page 7

Maori Pageant

Descriptive Notes on Song and Music (CONCERNING Maori song and music, which will be’so prominent next ‘week in connection with the radio pageant, Mr. Johannes OC. Andersen has ‘some interesting comments to make, "1The Maori had few musical instruments, he says. Strange to say, with the exception ef 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, 1 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 shelltrumpet, 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 sideholes. The tones produced differ in interval in all fiutes 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 fiutes 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 Buropean 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 confidences on their instruments-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 sxying to her on the fiute. So of tlie song-birds, the Maoris particularly liked the ones that seemed to be saying something, that is, the ones ‘whose voices approached human speech.