Grassroots, Rock(s), and Reggae: Music and Mayhem at the Port Moresby Show

An important facet of popular music in Papua New Guinea is public performance at cultural shows, which provide opportunities for musicians to develop occupational skills, sell their recordings, and reach large and diverse audiences. Cultural shows are also opportunities for the celebration of society, and sites for sociocultural and political contestation. This article explores the 1996 Port Moresby Show in Papua New Guinea as an example of a cultural show that featured popular music but also intermittently included mayhem, violence that threatened at times to endanger musicians and members of the audience and overwhelm the music. The description and analysis provide a case study of the multifaceted uses and functions of music in cultural shows and celebrations of society in Papua New Guinea, the perspectives of musicians on the violence that occurred at the 1996 Port Moresby Show, and the nature of the public discourse about the moral panic that resulted

Pearling Songs as Community Memory: Using Music Recordings to Recall and Preserve Indigenous and Australian Maritime History

The presentation will provide an overview of the role of music and musical memories in Australia\u27s pearling industry. It will include audio examples of Torres Strait Islander, Aboriginal and Anglo-Australian songs that chronicle the industry\u27s presence in Queensland and Western Australia. It will also include archival photographs of the industry and the multicultural workforce, communities and individuals who all contributed substantially to Australia\u27s economic development

‘Perfect Pearls: Australian Pearling Songs’

Abstract The historic Australian pearling industry was an important part of the Australian economy, especially along the \u27Pearl Frontier\u27 that stretched from Western Australia to Queensland. Pearling helped create new northern town such as Broome, Darwin and Thursday Island and music and music king were essential parts of their social and cultural activities. Music was everywhere in the life of the many peoples who created the multinational, multicultural and multilingual communities across the \u27Pearl Frontier\u27. The presentation focuses on some songs, performed both live and from the album \u27Perfect Pearls: Australian Pearling Songs\u27, and also images of the industry

The on-going debate about women playing didgeridu : how a musical icon can become an instrument of remembering and forgetting

An on-going debate surrounding the use of the didjeridu is the appropriateness of women playing it. This article explores examples of the quite diverse public discourse on the didjeridu in Australia (and elsewhere) but also some of the paradoxes informing the debate. The debate is characterised herein as part of a broader process of the construction of social memory via what is remembered of forgotten when the didjeridu is discussed or used. It is argued that, although gender is one dimension of the debate, there are other pertinent issues that need to be recognised as pivotal

www.nativeamericanmusic.com : marketing recordings in an interconnected world

The advent of the Internet presents challenges and opportunities for Indigenous peoples, in this instance web sites used to market Native American Indian music recordings. Three web sites are examined to reveal various strategies and tactics used to present recordings to potential consumers within the context of web-based capitalism and a "circuit of culture" centred on music. The sites are shown to combine aspects of culture, commerce and creativity and to offer recordings ranging from 'traditional' to 'contemporary' music. In some instances they also are shown to be successful collaborations between Native American and non-Native American marketers, artists and consumers

Aboriginal contemporary music as Australian cultural heritage the Black Image Band’s CD, Beautiful Land and Sea /

The Black Image Band from Cape York, Queensland, Australia write and perform music about thier home country and thus their CD is a type of intangible Aboriginal cultural heritage

'Bring the past to present': recording and reviving Rotuman music via a collaborative Rotuman/Fijian/Australian CD project

This paper explores a recording project that led to CDs documenting Rotuman musical performances and music practice in Suva, Fiji. The project was a collaboration between the Rotuman diasporic community, the Oceanic Centre for the Arts and Culture at the University of the South Pacific and a music based researcher from Australia. It uses description, analysis and ethnography to explore the role of digital technologies; the role and evolution of music in diasporic communities in Australia and Fiji; the benefits and challenges of collaborative transnational musical research projects; and the role of music researchers as music producers

Erub era kodo mer traditional & contemporary music & dance from Erub (Darnley Island) Torres Strait

Erub era kodo mer : traditional & contemporary music & dance from Erub (Darnley Island) Torres Strai