Indigenous Music
Indigenous Australian music refers to the music of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. Music forms an integral part of the social, cultural and ceremonial observances of these peoples, and has been so for over 60,000 years. Traditional Indigenous music is best characterised by the didgeridoo, the best-known instrument, which is considered by some to be the world's oldest. Archaeological studies of rock art in the Northern Territory suggest people of the Kakadu region were playing the instrument 15,000 years ago.
Contemporary Indigenous Australian music has covered numerous styles, including rock and roll, country, hip hop, and reggae. Jimmy Little is regarded as the first Aboriginal performer to achieve mainstream success, with his debut 1964 song "The Royal Telephone" highly popular and successful. In 2005, Little was presented with an honorary doctorate in music by the University of Sydney. Despite the popularity of some of his work, Little failed to launch Indigenous music in the country—from the 1970s onwards, groups such as Coloured Stone, Warumpi Band, and No Fixed Address would help improve the image of the genre. It would be Yothu Yindi that would bring Indigenous music to the mainstream, with their 1991 song "Treaty", from the album Tribal Voice, becoming a hit. would go on to reach #11 on the ARIA Singles Chart. The band's performances were based on the traditional Yolngu dance, and embodied a sharing of culture. The success of Yothu Yindi—winners of eight ARIA Awards—was followed in by Kev Carmody, Tiddas, Christine Anu, and numerous other Indigenous Australian musicians.
Indigenous Australian music is unique, as it dates back more than 60,000 years to the prehistory of Australia and continues the ancient songlines through contemporary artists as diverse as: David Dahwurr Hudson, Jimmy Little, Warumpi Band, Yothu Yindi, Tiddas, Wild Water, Christine Anu, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Saltwater Band, Nabarlek, Nokturnl, the Pigram Brothers, Coloured Stone, Blekbala Mujik, Kev Carmody, Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Australia
Famous quotes containing the words indigenous and/or music:
“What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground,—and to one another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I think sometimes, could I only have music on my own terms; could I live in a great city and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,—that were a bath and a medicine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)