Australian Music

Indigenous Australian Music

Our year 9 class has just finished learning about indigenous Australian music. This is a song we learnt in class. Ngarra Burra is a gospel song about Moses and Jesus, sung in a traditional aboriginal language. If you listen to this song, apart from the use of the traditional yorta yorta language, it doesn’t really reflect traditional aboriginal music at all. It is in a traditional western church- hymn or gospel style.

This reflects the sad history of treatment of aboriginal people in Australia. For many generations, aboriginal people were forced to live on missions. They didn’t have basic citizenship rights and were often not allowed to continue their own cultural or religious practises. In a sense, this song reflects the loss of indigenous culture and the imposition of western culture on the lives of indigenous people living on missions. The thematic focus on Moses demonstrates parallels with Afro-American gospel music, which also often focuses on the narrative of Moses, encapsulating a desire for liberation from slavery or oppression.

The song Ngarra Burra was featured in the movie The Sapphires, an award-winning Australian film that was released last year to critical acclaim. The Sapphires is loosely based on the story of a group of female aboriginal singers who overcome the prevalent prejudices in Australian society in the 1960’s to become a successful musical act, regarded as Australia’s answer to The Supremes. The film was a smash-hit here. We’d love to hear about how many of you saw the film in Ireland!

 

Students involved:

Jessica on piano

Lottie on guitar

Brittany

Alyssa

Alexandra

Catherine

Kaja

Olivia M

Olivia D

Marlena

Caitlin

Alison

Brigid