Appendix 6 - International Music Council

players in the commercial industry. These tend to be attributed by Aborigines to racial
factors, but more likely they have to do with lack of commercial skills and savvy.
• Cite examples where they are interested in developing hybrid musical forms – e.g.
music that combines two or more ethnic musical genres, or combines an ethnic music with
say, western popular music, or combines various forms of non-ethnic music.
RESPONSE. As noted already, some musicians experiment with hybrid forms based on
ethnic musics. Indigenous music is combined with western forms. Examples:
A number of works by classical composer Peter Sculthorpe utilising the Aboriginal
didgeridoo.
Works by Stephen Page for Bangarra Dance Company, combining traditional Aboriginal
song with computer generated music.
Recording by Joseph Tawadros and Bobby Singh, for Egyptian oud and Indian tabla.
Recording by the ensemble Waratah, combining koto, percussion, saxophone.
Recording by Taikoz, Australian taiko drummers,
plus Aboriginal didgeridoo.
Recording by Australian rock group Not Drowning, Waving, with
Papua/NewGuinea group
Telek.
Aboriginal rock
group Yothu Yindi combining rock and traditional elements.
There is no shortage of examples.
• Cite examples of the expression of personal or community identity through music, and
especially through musical diversity.
RESPONSE. Music is so strongly bound up with identity. There is little doubt that
indigenous musicians express their identity through their music. The music of immigrant
groups becomes all the more powerful as a statement of identity when they are far from
their origins. Most teenagers use music as an identity and bond with their cohort.
The definition of a national identity is an issue that seems to have troubled non-indigenous
Australians throughout their 200 year history in the country – and indigenous Australians
too, for the opposite reasons. One group came
here and did not know any more who they
were. The other group was here, and had its identity plundered.
When white Australia was almost totally of British stock, and had established a way of life
here, there was a startling homogeneity of culture and belief and whether or not the people
realised it, there was probably a fairly clear identity. The problem is perhaps demonstrated
by the fact that many people still called England ‘home’ – even when they had not set foot
there. Then came post-WW2 immigration and hundreds of other cultures and beliefs.
That
homogeneity disappeared.
‘Identity’ is a noun, singular. The idea of identity is more easily satisfied, the more
characteristics we can feel we share. What we experience in the new
Australian culture is
diversity. Our identity is in part that we are diverse. But that is a much more difficult idea
to live with.
In a way, music is an easy test of identity. Unless we have a professional obligation
otherwise, we can decide quite simply whether we like a music or we don’t. If we like it, it
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