Listening to History: Some Proposals for Reclaiming abstract The author explores the vibrant, but often hidden, the Practice of Live Music unorthodox musical culture of Australia, recounting little known movements, events, dates, personalities and Aboriginal traditions. He urges Jon Rose the listener to investigate and value this unique and fecund musical history, and in so doing, find models that are relevant to solving the dilemmas of a declining contemporary music practice. Live music encourages direct interconnectivity among ast year at a Sydney university, a musicologist To many living in our current people and with the physical L world upon which we rely for observed, “Everybody knows that music in Australia didn’t re- cut-and-paste paradise, this prob- ally get going until the mid-1960s.” Significantly, this gem was ably seems irrelevant, even an irrita- our existence; music can be life supporting, and in some situa- spoken at a seminar that featured a film about the Ntaria Ab- tion—why bother with the detailed tions, as important as life itself. original Ladies’ Choir from Hermannsburg, Central Australia sonic interconnectivity of the past While there is much to learn (Fig. 1). The denial of a vibrant and significant musical history when you can avoid both past and from the past, digital technology in white as well as indigenous culture has done this country a present by logging into, say, Sec- can be utilized as an interface great disservice. ond Life? I didn’t add ‘future’ to establishing a tactile praxis and enabling musical expression It may well be the prime reason why none of the 20th cen- the list of avoidances, because you that promotes original content, tury’s great musical forms ever originated in Australia. Bebop, can guarantee that the future will social connection and environ- western swing, Cajun, tango, and samba (to name but a few) be mostly a rehash of the past. It’s mental context. originated in lands also saddled with a colonial history. A tiny what we already have in Australia— country like Jamaica has given birth to no less than calypso, everything from faithful copies of ska, and reggae. European Baroque to yet more hip hop to concerts where almost any plink or plonk from the 20th Jon Rose (composer, musician, instrument-maker). E-mail:
Fig. 1. Members of the Ntaria Aboriginal Women’s Choir, Hermannsburg, Central Austra- lia. (Photo © Jon Rose 2004)
©2007 Jon Rose LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 18, pp. 9–16, 2008 9
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/lmj.2008.18.9 by guest on 26 September 2021 I want to describe a story of music, comparatively few remaining traditional Great Depression. These pianos didn’t sometimes positive, often wayward, al- song dreamers. just stay in the capital cities. Dragged by ways interesting, which could point to a There is a unique recording made in bullock dray, lumped on the back of cam- productive future. 1899 of Tasmanian Aboriginal Fanny els, these instruments ended up all over So first, to History. It didn’t start off Cochrane singing into an Edison phono- the country (Fig. 2). so badly, as Inga Clendinnen recalls in graph machine. The photo is stunning Let’s look at how and what they played her book Dancing with Strangers. The too (both are held at the State Library on all these pianos. firsthand account of Lieutenant William of Tasmania). But that is all there is un- Mr. Wallace was presented with various Bradley states that “the people mixed til A.P. Elkin’s first recording in 1949, as pieces of music, which he played extem- with ours and all hands danced together” far as I can ascertain. Audio recordings poraneously [on the piano], introducing [1]. Other dance events followed. Musi- thereafter document almost exclusively occasionally some brilliant variations, which excited much general astonish- cal gestures of friendship also took place. the music practice in Arnhem Land. ment. He ended that performance with The British started to sing. The Aborigi- Along with hundreds of languages, we ‘Currency Lasses’ (as composed by our nal women in their bark canoes “either have rubbed out thousands, if not tens talented towns lady, Mrs. John Paul Se- sung one of their songs, or imitated [the of thousands, of ancient ceremonial and nior) adding to it some extemporane- sailors], in which they succeeded beyond everyday practical songs without a trace. ous variations. . . . (Sydney Gazette, March 1, 1836, p. 3) [6] conception” [2]. Some tunes whistled That recording of Fanny Cochrane is or sung by the British became favourite arguably one of the most important 19th For my own part, as a keyboard player, I had to learn quickly how to fake intro- items with the expanding indigenous rep- century musical artefacts from anywhere ductions, endings, modulations; sponta- ertoire of borrowed songs. Right there at in the world—certainly more important neously interpolate or leave out a section the start, we have a cultural give and take than the recording of Brahms playing his of music; transpose on sight or by ear; from both sides. piano in the same year. With Johannes spontaneously “fill-out” or otherwise In the late 18th century dancing and we still have the notation; without Fan- modify a given arrangement . . . embel- lishing or otherwise varying each repeti- music, and you couldn’t really have one ny’s voice there would be nothing. And tion of my solo. (St. John Caws, Goldfield without the other, offered significant maybe that’s what we have wanted, “noth- pianist, 1860s, Victoria) [7] levels of communication between indig- ing” to connect us to the horrors of Tas- enous people and the invaders. Dancing manian history. This empirical methodology would was necessary before any exchange of “An impossible past superimposed on sound familiar to any professional musi- gifts or getting down to the business of an unlikely present suggesting an improb- cian who worked in the social and RSL the day—which was not always how do able future” [4]. Here Wayne Grady, in clubs of Australia one hundred years we steal your land without you getting his book The Bone Museum, is describing later. We’ll return to the practical side of violent. Aboriginal mimicry (and gen- the nature of the palaeontologic record, the piano later. eral piss-taking) of the soldiers parading, but he could be describing the culture A read through John Whiteoak’s bowing, and bellowing at each other was of the modern Australian state. I find it a groundbreaking book Playing Ad Lib a method of comprehension, a way of useful key. Let’s unlock some other musi- (from which those quotes were taken) accepting strange behaviour. Dance and cal history that has been documented. presents a strong tradition of orality, and music were the live commentary, the lit- We know that the first piano arrived on- through observations of colonial Vaude- eral embodiment of the story. Records board the ship Sirius with the first fleet. ville, the music hall, the silent cinema, recall that Aboriginal peoples were, up It was owned by the surgeon George Wo- circus, and theatrical events, he exposes to the destruction of their traditional gan. What happened to it is not known, a lexicon of unorthodox music making way of life, the masters of tactile learning but we do know that the import of pianos more akin to the 1960s avant-garde and and the oral transmission of all cultural by the beginning of the 20th century had beyond than repressed Victorian society. knowledge. grown from a nervous trickle to a barely If you like, the colonial 19th century was This early window of cultural opportu- controllable flood. The famous statement a period of fecund instrumental tech- nity vanished, of course, when Australia by Oscar Commetant that Australians nique, music making without the instruc- stopped being perceived as a jail and be- had already imported 700,000 pianos by tion manual. came instead a place of plunder. But this 1888 may be unsubstantiated [5], but the Here is a description of a concert in didn’t mean that music as a prime tool notion of one piano for every three or 1918; it’s Belle Sylvia and the first Austra- of communication became redundant. four Australians by the beginning of the lian jazz band complete with Stroh (that’s On the contrary, just about all aspects 20th century could well be close to the a violin with a horn attachment for me- of colonial life are embedded in the mu- mark. Here are some statistics just from chanical amplification). It’s already in the sical record if you care to look. It’s not the port of Melbourne for that year: im- Australian tradition of mimicry, send up, easy since, until very recently, few histo- ported: 3,173 upright pianos; 1,247 or- and pastiche. The performance included rians ever took the place seriously. From gans. But then by 1909, Australia-wide farmyard and jungle effects, the playing the indigenous point of view, there may it is 10,432 imported pianos; by 1910, of two cornets at the same time, thun- be images of whitefella’s boats in rock 13,912 pianos; by 1911, 19,508 pianos; der, pistol shots, frenetic drumming with art, but we’ll never know what songs and by 1912, 20,856 pianos. kitchen utensils and grotesque vocals. were dreamed about the invaders—af- That’s 64,708 imported pianos in just 4 Descriptive pieces often combined famil- ter initially trying to ignore the crazed years. The figures come from the “Musi- iar musical segments, innovative textures strangers, you may be sure that such a cal Opinion and Musical Trade Review,” and individual sound effects to repre- catastrophe quickly became part of the November 1914. (I’m grateful to Alison sent a particular event in sound. Some oral record—read Allan Marett’s Songs, Rabinovici for these statistics.) notable examples were performed in the early 1860s by the violin/cello duo Dreamings, and Ghosts: The Wangga of North Whichever way you estimate, there Poussard and Douay. The duo interpo- Australia if you doubt me [3]. Contempo- were hundreds of thousands of “Joan- lated variations (sometimes improvisa- rary events are still subject matter for the nas” in Australia by the time of the 1930s tions) on popular tunes and an array of
10 Rose, Listening to History
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/lmj.2008.18.9 by guest on 26 September 2021 Fig. 2. Hollis Taylor accompanies Dinky the Singing Dingo on an 1884 imported Thürmer Piano. Under the manage- ment and chain of Jim Cotterill, Dinky sings live to busloads of tourists most nights at Stuart’s Well, Central Australia—working more than any other professional musician I know. (Photo © Jon Rose 2004)
unorthodox instrumental techniques to with their own articulation, gliding porta- bodies. Documentation of the orchestra create complex and lengthy musical ‘de- mento, and timbre, it is an extraordinary shows dozens of violinists, the odd gui- scriptions’ of events such as the Burke and unique music that is being made. tar, a didgeridoo, and some four banjo and Wills expedition [8]. Founded by Lutheran Pastors Kemp players [9]. That’s also from Whiteoak’s book. and Schwartz in 1887, the choir’s music I’m not a fan of Wagner but I would So, the evidence indicates that colonial is full of colonial cultural contradiction, pay big bickies to hear a recording of music often pointed to the many char- but that music has also nurtured the in- Wagner with banjos. Unfortunately, the acteristics of indigenous music practice, digenous population through times of only audio documentation seems to be and through mimicry Aboriginal peoples persecution and extreme physical hard- the singing of an Anglo hymn—nothing rendered and made a place for the in- ship. The choir has gone from a 40-plus from the classical canon. vaders’ music in their own repertoires; it membership in its heyday of the 1930s In spite of the nuns who ran the Lep- was a Gebrauchsmusik—a functional music to the current situation, where it is dif- rosarium doing their very best, by 1960, embedded with common narrative and ficult to muster eight singers; on our way 350 Aborigines had died painful deaths common frames of reference, a shared to record the choir 2 years ago, two of the there from Hanson’s disease. It’s a shock- sense of purpose—music that was prac- choir’s ladies had died in that week. This ing frontier story, but my point is that the tical and local, in which mimicry and music could vanish in 5 years. practice of music fulfilled a vital if con- improvisation were the prime vehicles Mixed up with government policy to tradictory role—it was part patronising of expression. Unfortunately, from the liquidate Aboriginal culture by placing western hegemony and part a genuine gold rush onwards, the common purpose mixed-blood children in institutions is release, expression, and consolation for of the colonisers became clear. Even the the 1935 example where Aboriginal chil- those suffering. (The treatment under most enlightened were engaged in the dren with leprosy were “rounded up” (to this regime was harsh: they had a jail at wholesale destruction of Aboriginal cul- quote the local newspaper) and placed this Leprosarium—a fuckin’ jail in a chil- ture, a politico-economic agenda formu- in the Derby Leprosarium in Western dren’s hospital!) lated by the powerful and still entering Australia. An unexpected outcome of the law books via the mining industry to this brutal herding was the founding of The Australian aboriginal music is beau- tiful and sprightly, like the Phoenician, this day. The Bungarun Orchestra. To keep their whilst at times it is solemn and serious, Even where Christianity worked a more fingers exercised, up to 50 patients per- like the Dorian. A native song of warfare, moralistic trail of destruction compared formed Handel, Beethoven, and Wagner which would scarcely sound to us as such, to the pastoralists, the practice of music by ear, copying one of the sisters at the is liable to drive the natives frenetic and was both the medium of conquest and the piano. And, according to their own tes- to provoke them to fight. On the con- trary, they get so touched by their mourn- medium of survival. Whatever your view timony, the music helped the inmates ful songs as to be moved to tears [10]. of history, when the Hermannsburg Ab- escape the loss of their families and tra- original Women’s Choir sing the chorales ditional cultural life, and also the painful So wrote the inquisitive and insightful of J.S. Bach in their Arrernte language, injections of chaulmoogra oil into their Bishop Salvado who founded the New
Rose, Listening to History 11
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/lmj.2008.18.9 by guest on 26 September 2021 Norcia Benedictine Abbey and mission in and death, such a feat would have been lia day? This is the New Orleans jazz of Western Australia in 1846. The commit- seen as commonplace. I’m grateful to the Australia—who is looking after this, who ment to music from Salvado, and a hun- library at New Norcia for this informa- is nurturing this? dred years later from Dom Moreno, both tion. The music history of this country is skilled pianists and composers, is one of Gumleaf playing may well go back written with a cringing agenda and read the most compelling stories of interracial thousands of years. Again, the record is in a state of amnesia. Let’s take a history music making in the history of Australia. hazy. According to musicologist Robyn of a definable music; let’s take electronic Despite the vicious, racist policies of the Ryan [12], it was documented first by music, for example. What are the guiding Perth government, the Spanish sought pastoralists in 1877 in the Channel Coun- issues for such a history? (1) If it’s any to ameliorate the sufferings of the Nyun- try of Western Queensland. The gum- good, it can’t have originated here, (2) gara through constant music making— leaf was used by Aborigines in Christian No one really likes it anyway. Now let’s and a good Mediterranean diet. At the Church services by the beginning of the re-write that. beginning there was a 20-piece string or- 20th century, and reached popularity in 1872. (That’s where one could start.) chestra, which by 1885 had morphed into the Great Depression of the 1930s when The Telegraph line is finished linking a 25-piece brass band. The library at New the desperately unemployed formed Adelaide to Darwin, and Australia to Norcia has many documents that attest to 20-piece Aboriginal gumleaf bands like the rest of the world, and with it the first the oral skills of the Nyungara children. Wallaga Lake, Burnt Bridge, and Lake Ty- transmission of electronic signals in the Within 9 months, they had mastered all ers, and armed with a big Kangaroo skin southern hemisphere. The Aborigines the instruments of the brass band and a bass drum, marched up and down the through whose land it passed heard substantial body of the repertoire. Father eastern seaboard—demonstrating a de- these, and they heard something else. J. Flood recalls that on one occasion he fiance in the face of the whitefella and his They called it the Singing Line due to gave one of the Aboriginal kids a flute economic methodology. The spirit of this the Aeolian effect of the wind on the sin- for amusement on a 40-mile journey by music was not to appear again before the gle line cable. What a great inter-media horse and trap; by the end of the jour- 1970s Aboriginal cultural revival. Alas, event—you got electronic music and the ney, he had “mastered all the difficulties the gumleaf band has disappeared. What invention of environmental art, about 90 of the instrument and could play some has happened to this tradition? The Wal- years before the word was coined. tunes really well; and yet he had never laga Lake Band played for the opening 1878. The first transmission of vocal and seen a flute before [11].” of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. instrumental music from Melbourne Of course to an indigenous people Why isn’t there a 20-piece gumleaf band Town Hall to South Melbourne Council whose oral skills were a matter of life marching down George street on Austra- Chambers via telephone.
Fig. 3. Roseina Boston playing gum leaf in the Jon Rose production Pannikin at The Melbourne Festival. See
12 Rose, Listening to History
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/lmj.2008.18.9 by guest on 26 September 2021 1893. Percy Grainger conceives of his they never knew had been playing over imperial to metric, requiring the whole free music [13], a music of gliding tones, the top of them. Is that post-modernism circuit board to be rebuilt. Buying a Mori which would not be realised before his or what? amp had certain difficulties. If you put experiments of the 1950s and the inven- 1951. On the 8th of June, the School of your amp in for repairs, there was always tions of such analogue synthesizers as the the Air was officially opened at the Royal a good chance that on your return to pick Moog and the VCS3 in the 1960s. Flying Doctor Base. What has that got to it up, you would find that it had been sold 1914. Audiences hear (classical and rag- do with electronic music, I hear some ask? to some other customer in the queue. time) violinist and inventor Henri Kube- Shortwave radio produces all the sounds Don’s reply would be “Never mind, I’ll lik on the vaudeville stages in Melbourne associated with analogue electronic mu- make you another one” or “Look, mate, and Sydney. “As he played the fiddle, his sic, white noise, ring modulation, phas- I’m not a bloody corporation.” ‘Kublophone’ transmitted electronic ing, delay. . . . You name it, it’s got it. So 1979. The world’s first sampler is pro- signals mysteriously around the audito- hundreds of outback kids grew up listen- duced in Sydney by Peter Vogel and Kim rium.” ing to electronic music on a daily basis. Ryrie, but at $50,000 per unit, it is soon 1922. Mr. J.W. Hambly-Clark experiment- They may not have particularly appreci- displaced by cheaper copies, leading to ing with radio station 5AA cut his own ated the fact that their radio sets went commercial death by 1986. It’s about the Edison-type cylinders as he played violin brrrrzzzzaaaawwiiiaaaagegegegegege, only digital invention whereby Australia solos and broadcast these by placing a but as Arnold Schoenberg pointed out, is known throughout the music industry. telephone carbon microphone down “Neue Musik beim angfang ist niemals so Rock stars still hoard them; it’s among the throat of the long phonograph horn schoen” (New music is never very nice at the grand obsolete objects that you find speaker. (That quote courtesy of Warren the beginning) . . . inferring that if it is, it’s left hanging about in the corridors at the Burt.) probably not new. Australian Broadcasting Corporation— 1932. Jack Ellit invents a musique concrète 1955. A Silliac computer, under the guid- aging homeless technology. style of collage using cinematic film stock; ance of John Bennett, head of physics, These items that I’ve listed are all pre- this went on in the cultural isolation of plays music at The World Conference of cursors to the digital age of music and Australia 20 years before the French got Automatic Machines, at the University have led to such things as MIDI con- hold of the idea. of Sydney. When the computer played trolled instruments, interactive systems, 1947. The Musik Maker Magazine on the the university anthem as a death march, MAX and JITTER, and the ubiquitous 21st of the 7th states: the critic from The Age reported that it iPod. Australians, you might say, moved “sounded like a refrigerator defrosting, from being innovators to consumers. Glenn Marks is very busy with his pro- but in tune.” I’m sure that do-it-yourself couple jected ‘electronic Orchestra’ with which This has all happened in Australia, and Joanne Cannon and Stuart Favilla, who he hopes to startle the Sydney multitudes shortly. The idea is that the actual instru- we are not even up to the official begin- have developed their own hybrid instru- ments of cellos, violins and piano emit ning of electronic music, which many ments, including a laser light harp and the no sound, but electronic devices pick up commentators put at 1958 with the pre- giant digital Serpent, without much help the vibrations, convey them to a central miere of Poème Electronique at The Brus- from anybody, should also be included mixing control panel, where they are sels World’s Fair. Somehow, in the USA, in our revised history of electronic mu- co-ordinated and blended before pass- ing on through the amplifier, thence to the Silliac type of computer technology sic. My point is that you can and should multiple speakers. ended up as the RCA Mark II Sound research and write your own history; if it Synthesizer at Princeton University (in has content, it will ring true. It might also 1948. Australia’s first solid-body electric 1958), utilised by such luminaries as Mil- provide the materials with which to chal- violin is built by Lynn Johanson for his ton Babbitt. In Australia, we had to wait lenge the future. Throughout the 1980s, brother Eric, who designed the electron- until 1999 for that machine to splutter Rainer Linz self-financed and published ics and pick-up. It uses a standard mag- into life again to be heard. I’ll let you a regular NMA music journal, articles, netic phonograph cartridge that has the figure why that should be. and books—all of which presented an al- steel needle in contact with the under- 1964. Audio waveforms and magnets ternative paradigm for the development neath of the bridge creating a direct are used by Stan Ostaja-Kotkowski and of an identifiable local music. The many vibration pick-up rather than any sound- Malcolm Kay to control the world’s first issues of self-reliance dealt within those box and microphone. homemade video synthesizer. That is im- pages demonstrated a desire and passion One of my favourite stories relates how agery being controlled live by electronic for experimentation in the face of official he was in a radio studio waiting to per- sound. (Thanks to Stephen Jones for that mediocrity. Decades on, they make an in- form solo. Another band was perform- piece of information.) teresting read of the future. ing, and Eric was just playing around 1972. Dancer Philippa Cullen, engineer Maybe we should look to musicians with their tune thinking no one else Philip Connor, and composer Greg rather than composers to take tradition could hear him, as his violin made very Schiemer produced electronic music to a new level or at least radically altered little noise unamplified. However, he was whereby the movements of the dancer on context. Instrumentalists have already plugged into the radio station’s system stage played a synthesizer controlled by done this. What is Aboriginal Australia’s and the guy on the mixing board saw a homemade Theremin technology [14]. greatest contribution to new (let’s use sound input and turned it up. He liked If you think about it, sonic sensation is those horrible words) art music world- what he heard and turned it up more, only possible through movement. wide? I would argue the technique of making it a dominant sound on the per- 1977. The world’s smallest 100-watt am- circular breathing and voice additives formance of the other band. Well, the sta- plifier and multi-speaker system were to create multiphonics. The brass and tion phones rang hot about how much made by Don Mori in Sydney. Each unit woodwind virtuosos who have sprung up they liked that violin with the band. The was custom made for the customer. Disas- since the 1960s would be diminished in- band was furious that their playing was ter struck when the down pipe that Don deed without these sonic wonders firmly overshadowed by another performer that used for the casing was changed from planted in their chops. Evan Parker, saxo-
Rose, Listening to History 13
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/lmj.2008.18.9 by guest on 26 September 2021 phone; Jim Denley, flute; Leigh Hobba, the Australia Ad Lib [16] survey for the Can you still find live music embedded clarinet; Heinz Holliger, oboe; Vinko ABC, I came across Chris Nightingale, in communal activity? Well, if you are an Globokar, trombone; Melvyn Poore, alias “the whistler,” playing dance music atheist, the church service will have to tuba; Conrad Bauer, trombone; Axil on his tin whistle and various percus- be ruled out. Even if you are a Catholic, Dorner, trumpet . . . the list must be in its sion instruments attached to his legs at you’ll have to rule the church service out thousands by now. Central Station. Chris plays whistle while as they got rid of all the good music back Yothu Yindi may have come closest to running on the spot for up to four hours in 1965 at Vatican II. I guess that leaves generating a new form or genre, mixing at a time. This is exhilarating music, not shopping and, much as I loath the ac- trad Yolgnu songs of the Gum-atj and to say exhausting; the flute sound is full tivity, I’m please to report that at David Rirra-tjingu clans with balanda (white- of overblown harmonics. One notes the Jones department store you can find an fella) rock music, but the re-mix of their drum and bass influence on his rhythmic example of functional live music that still hit record “Treaty” was formulaic dance patterns. This is what he said about his exists. Michael Hope is a pianist who pro- music complete with excruciating multi- demon whistle and percussion act: “The vides hundreds, if not thousands, of shop- culti video. I don’t think it represents a running on the spot and the jumping pers in their various states of depression, new form, and by now where niche mar- up and down causes those extra little loneliness, delirium, and ecstasy with keting demands a new style name with harmonics to pop out unexpected like, unique moments of the recognition of just about every released album, it prob- purging my body, purging my mind. I still their plight. Delving into a repertoire of ably doesn’t matter. Mandawuy Yunu smoke rollies, though.” between three and four thousand songs, pingu’s resulting initiative however, The Here is a model of how an Australian Michael’s musical function expands from Garma Festival [15], is something to be artist might live their life today. Her the role of background music, through truly proud of and is the kind of ongoing, name is Roseina Boston; she is a Gum- the role of surrealist entertainer, into vital cultural event where music at least is bayun-girr elder from the Nambucca that of socialworker—keeping members considered valuable. Valley. Her Aboriginal name is Wanangaa of our often dysfunctional society from In many ways the story of the piano in which means “stop” because she was so collapse. Australia has come full circle. The first hyperactive—she still is (Fig. 3). Significantly, a few years back some fleet piano of George Wogan has never She was born under a lantana bush on new suits in middle (meddle) manage- been found and was probably eaten by Stewart Island in the Nambucca Valley in ment thought that Michael should be white ants within a few years of it being 1935. Her grandfather’s brother, Uncle booted out and replaced with some buy, dumped at Sydney Cove. What happened George Possum Davis, was well-known for buy, keep on buying electronic hip-hop. to countless other keyboard instruments his Burnt Bridge Gumleaf Band in the Michael’s shopping fans responded with is demonstrated by what can be found 1930s. By the age of eight, Roseina had a petition, he was reinstated, and he’s still in a few private museums such as Albert acquired an excellent gumleaf technique. there. Fox’s The Musical Village near Mel- When you meet her, within minutes you Imagine if every major store had live bourne and Margaret McDonald’s col- are aware of a polymath, as she recounts music, or even a lunchtime concert? It’s lection of between 400–500 keyboards at the travels she has undertaken to find the not fantasy. In Tokyo in the 1980s, there Nowra, New South Wales. correct location of her dreamings and were concerts of new music going on in It is also suggested by the work of Perth shows you the paintings with which she department stores on a regular basis. piano player Ross Bolleter. Ross has be- has documented these totemistic experi- And they paid well too. come a specialist in performing on “the ences, all interrupted by bursts of gum- Clearly people would still shop ruined piano.” These are instruments leaf playing—a rich sound with extrovert whether there was music or not. So let’s that are prepared by the actions of an vibrato reminiscent of the soprano saxo- look at some examples where music, in extreme climate and/or human neglect. phone of Sidney Bechet. Her repertoire traditional Aboriginal terms, is life sup- So, the continent of Australia has had includes the transformative technique porting, or as important as life itself. Not its say about the piano, the climate has of birdsong mimicry, including the most quite up there with the concept of “if you simply destroyed the vast majority that extraordinary rendition of a Kookaburra don’t sing the universe into existence, it were sent here. In recent years, Ross has that these ears have ever heard. doesn’t exist,” but close. started a piano sanctuary at Wambyn Ol- Traditional societies are loaded with David Harvey is a musical savant. ive Farm, Western Austraia, where these examples where the leaders had to carry He was born in 1989 with quite severe bastions of western culture can live out the entire cultural knowledge system autism. From 18 months onwards, his their remaining years crumbling to the through song, dance, storytelling, and mother noted that almost every action tune of gravity and the odd cyclone com- visual manifestations. You didn’t get the by David was concerned with music, not ing in off the Indian Ocean. Bolleter’s gig unless you could sing, tell stories, and only playing and singing music but mak- use of history to make new and poignant dance the best. Imagine a prime minister ing drawings of musicians and musical music is exemplary. or president who can sing—only Hugo instruments, and conducting music. On Other music has arrived in the “now” Chavez of Venezuela comes to mind. Un- his first visit to an orchestral concert at through equally compelling circum- fortunately, we’ve just had 11 years of a age 5, he jumped up onto the rostrum stances. Drum and fife music was prob- leader who despised just about all culture, and proceeded to conduct, much to the ably the most utilised Gebrauchsmusik the arts, and education, too. Rudd (the amazement of all there. Later visits to played by the British military on arrival at new prime minister) at least can dance parks involved David finding an ersatz Sydney Cove, used to punctuate speeches, a bit. But these are our leaders—forget rostrum and conducting trees, graves, toasts to the King, orders, floggings, and them—how could we make the practice people—the city as his own giant musical hangings. To say the music inhabited the of music ubiquitous? And I said music, composition—making sense of his world physical would be an understatement; not muzak—music as a firsthand experi- through music. I’m not suggesting that bloody and corporal would be a better ence, something actually played new by we all go round conducting trees or traf- description. A few years ago as part of people each and every time. fic, but I find David’s perception of a ho-
14 Rose, Listening to History
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/lmj.2008.18.9 by guest on 26 September 2021 . . . it’s about learning from each other the unique indigenous culture as well as the contemporary knowledge that we learn from the white man’s world. This is about uniting people together and the weighing and balancing of their knowl- edge.
How can we weigh and balance knowl- edge of music when only 23% of Aus- tralians get any kind of specialist music instruction in our public schools? (Pri- vate schools do much better, of course.) It’s not just that the standard of what there is teeters from the bad to the abys- mal; it’s the fact that music is just not rated as a necessary life skill, not rated in the same way that the notion of music as a profession has become laughable. Vast sums of money can be spent on the bricks and mortar of opera houses and conservatoriums, but no one wants to pay Fig. 4. Jon Rose and Hollis Taylor bowing a fence on top of a sand dune in the Strzelecki the musicians. The punters might pay for Desert, Australia. (Photo © Jon Rose and Hollis Taylor 2004) celebrities, but they resent paying for the real cost of live musicians, and by that, we know what the value of music really is in our society: rock bottom. mogeneous musical environment much relies on his ears to tell him where he is at Here are some statistics taken in 2004 more compelling than any performance any given geographical point. His survival from the Music in Australia Knowledge I’ve heard at the Opera House. sometimes depends on it. Scott has been Base [17]: Others turn physical disability into mu- completely blind since he was 4 months Out of a population of over 20.1 mil- sical ability: the Tasmanian guitarist Greg old. He has a knowledge of resonances or lion people, only 230,800 persons said Kingston, who suffers from Tourette’s sonic shadows that guides his every move. they were involved as live performers of Syndrome, would be an example of that. Furthermore, these sonic maps, once music. That’s a lot less than the number Greg is an improvising guitarist who at- learnt, must be constantly upgraded as of pianos in Australia in 1888 when the tributes his speedy and explosive style of objects and obstacles are moved in or out population was well under three mil- playing directly to Tourette’s. Greg plays of his regular journeys. He must be able lion. the music of his condition in a symbiotic to hear the arrival of the unexpected and So how unmusical have we become? relationship. If only guitarists without react to that. Armed only with a stick, he That figure, 230,000, includes unpaid Tourette’s could play with half that kind must be able to hear a world of total and and paid, hobbyists as well as profession- of energy. unremitting darkness. als. That’s 1.47% of the population . . . and Multiple sclerosis sentenced John Scott’s perfect pitch helps in identify- I would suggest that is an exaggeration. Blades to a wheelchair, where no doubt it ing the horn on his father’s car, or any You know how people are . . . they want to was expected that he would spiral slowly friend’s car, from a dozen other similar give a positive answer to “Do you play mu- out of view. The contrary happened and horns from a dozen other identical mod- sic?” “Oh, yeah, I still play a bit of guitar with committed zeal, he has become els of car in the broadband noise of the now and then.” a major figure in the Sydney alt music urban environment. “Oh, that must be Out of that 1.47%, 37.4% of music scene, organising and conducting his Steve, his car horn is an E♭ major triad,” performers worked less than 3 hours Loop Orchestra, as well as promoting he told me. per week, 47.4% worked 3 to less than 10 and supporting new music and outsider Again, I’m not suggesting that we all hours, and only 15.2% worked 10 hours art. Not only have his activities kept his have to be blind in order to create a or more per week. That means that less mental state together, he tells me that more musical society. But I am propos- than 3,500 musicians were employed any- his condition has actually been reversed ing that if we developed even a fraction thing like full time in this country during through his involvement with music. of the sensitivity of Scott’s oral skills, our the economic boom year of 2004. Physical healing with music is not just the sonic environment would automatically What was their worth? There are no province of new agers—music can be as improve beyond recognition. figures, but of that initial boast of 230,800 practical as taking aspirin. Which takes us to the big outdoors. people who said they had been involved When I met Scott Erichsen, he was 18 There are good models in our recent in music somehow, only 11,500 said they years old and studying jazz piano at the past, but these are fairly isolated events received more than $5,000 in that year. Conservatorium of Music but, unlike when you consider that all music was And that number would be seriously most of us, Scott carries with him a series an outdoor affair (in Australia) up un- warped by the millions handed out to of sonic maps, each one of which is cer- til 1788. I have already mentioned the opera and the five orchestras. tainly much more complex to memorize spectacularly successful Garma Festival Anyway, tell that to the politicians and than any tune, standard, or set of changes. in North Eastern Arnhem Land. lawyers who have put the noose of pub- For every journey Scott makes, no matter Here’s what Galarrwuy Yunupingu says lic liability around the neck of anyone how complex or trivial, long or short, he about the festival: in Australia who tries to put on a public
Rose, Listening to History 15
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/lmj.2008.18.9 by guest on 26 September 2021 musical event outside the rigid confines a direct musical expression. Imagine if December 1938, from the Archives of the Grainger of an official controlled venue. In a place every time you witness a public encoun- Museum. like Sydney, live music has been legislated ter such as shopping, sport, or even a 14. See Stephen Jones, “Philippa Cullen: Dancing to the edge of non-existence. The vibrant government debate, the content is trans- the Music,” Leonardo Music Journal 14 (2004). pub culture of 20 and 30 years ago was mitted through music, physically per- 15. See
16 Rose, Listening to History
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