Artfully hidden: Text and rhythm in a central Australian aboriginal song series

Abstract

Traditional songs from Central Australia have a text set to an unvarying rhythm, which is in contrast to songs from many other parts of Australia. This has led many researchers to regard text and rhythm of Central Australian Aboriginal songs as ‘two facets of the same structure’. In creating this structure the question is whether the setting of text to rhythm is random and thus non-metrical, or whether it is based on regular alignment of textual features with rhythmic features. If the latter, a further question arises as to what particular features of text align with rhythm. In this article I show that the setting of text to rhythm is sensitive to syllable structure of spoken language in a public women's song series from Central Australia called Akwelye.

This article draws on my doctoral research which was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award and a number of Sydney University fieldwork grants. I am grateful to many Kaytetye people who shared their songs with me throughout this research, m particular, Daisy Kemarre, Katie Ampetyane, Blanche Ross, Amy Ngamperle, Lena Ngamperle and Hilda Ngamperle. I am indebted to Alison Ross for her assistance with linguistic transcription and translation. A verlson of this paper was presented at a workshop on Australian Aboriginal languages in March 2006, Pearl Beach, where I benefited from insightful comments by a number of participants. I thank John Henderson, Gavin Breen, Allan Marett and Linda Barwick for providing helpful comments on either drafts of this article as well as the two anonymous readers for Musicology Australia. I thank Gordon Willams for suggesting the title.

This article draws on my doctoral research which was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award and a number of Sydney University fieldwork grants. I am grateful to many Kaytetye people who shared their songs with me throughout this research, m particular, Daisy Kemarre, Katie Ampetyane, Blanche Ross, Amy Ngamperle, Lena Ngamperle and Hilda Ngamperle. I am indebted to Alison Ross for her assistance with linguistic transcription and translation. A verlson of this paper was presented at a workshop on Australian Aboriginal languages in March 2006, Pearl Beach, where I benefited from insightful comments by a number of participants. I thank John Henderson, Gavin Breen, Allan Marett and Linda Barwick for providing helpful comments on either drafts of this article as well as the two anonymous readers for Musicology Australia. I thank Gordon Willams for suggesting the title.

Notes

This article draws on my doctoral research which was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award and a number of Sydney University fieldwork grants. I am grateful to many Kaytetye people who shared their songs with me throughout this research, m particular, Daisy Kemarre, Katie Ampetyane, Blanche Ross, Amy Ngamperle, Lena Ngamperle and Hilda Ngamperle. I am indebted to Alison Ross for her assistance with linguistic transcription and translation. A verlson of this paper was presented at a workshop on Australian Aboriginal languages in March 2006, Pearl Beach, where I benefited from insightful comments by a number of participants. I thank John Henderson, Gavin Breen, Allan Marett and Linda Barwick for providing helpful comments on either drafts of this article as well as the two anonymous readers for Musicology Australia. I thank Gordon Willams for suggesting the title.