Catalogue Of Recordings Of Pacific Islands Music

The islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia are steeped in diverse musical traditions that reach far beyond the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Music in Pacific Island Cultures is the first brief, single-volume text to provide a thematic, succinct introduction to the music of the Pacific Islands--a region of the world that has long been underrepresented in ethnomusicological studies. Based on the authors' extensive fieldwork and experiences in Pacific Island cultures, the text draws on interviews with performers, eyewitness accounts of performances, vivid illustrations, and insights gained from ongoing participation in Pacific music. The authors use four themes--colonialism, belief systems, musical flows, and the re/presentation of Pacific cultures--to survey the region and draw parallels and contrasts between its various musical traditions [Publisher description]

This book, based on fieldwork spanning a decade, gives a comprehensive analysis of the musical life of a unique Polynesian community whose geographical isolation, together with a local ban on missionaries and churches, combine to allow its 600 members to maintain a level of traditional cultural practices unique to the region. Takü is arguably the only location where traditional Polynesian religion continues to be practiced. This book explores the many ways in which spirit activities impact on both domestic and ritual life, how group singing and dancing give audible and visible expression to a variety of religious beliefs, and how spirit mediums relay songs and dances from the recent dead. Takü’s community is well able to articulate the significance of their own strong performance tradition, and this book allows expert singers and dancers to speak passionately for themselves on subjects they understand intimately. Musical ethnographies from the Pacific are rare. Like Moyle’s earlier landmark volumes on Samoan and Tongan music, and also his trilogy on Australian Aboriginal music, this work will be of immense value to Pacific studies and will assume a place among the recognized staples of ethnomusicological research.

Folk Songs Hawaii Sings is a sparkling compilation of melodies from the islands of Polynesia together with a variety of folk songs that countless Asian people have brought with them to their new home in the Hawaiian Islands. In one sense it is a musical picture of the renowned harmonious blend of people who reside in Hawaii today; in another, it is a colorful record of ties with the Eastern world and ancestral heritage in line with the same American tradition that saw songs of the soil and the sea brought to the United States from Europe in an earlier age. All the songs and more, whether from Hawaii or Samoa, China or Japan, the Philippines, Okinawa, or Mongolia, are melodic bearers of traditions and aspirations, or vehicles of simple pleasures that form the background of the people who today share the hospitable sun of the Hawaiian Islands with their Caucasian neighbors. These melodies and rhythms have found their way into the many festivals and musical presentations that are so much a way of life in the welcome addition to the American Union.

An encyclopaedia of information on major aspects of Pacific life, including the physical environment, peoples, history, politics, economy, society and culture. The CD-ROM contains hyperlinks between section titles and sections, a library of all the maps in the encyclopaedia, and a photo library.