Music is an integral part of Aboriginal culture and story-telling, and always has been. It also serves as a fun way to embed Indigenous perspectives in your early childhood classroom.
Because music has always played such a significant role in Aboriginal culture, there are a wide range of avenues through which you can engage in music in your classroom including traditional music forms as well as contemporary Aboriginal music. Both are really important platforms for engaging children in learning.
Let’s look at them both in more detail.
Traditional Aboriginal music forms
Throughout Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, a range of different musical instruments were created, traditionally carved from the materials (e.g. different types of trees) available to people on their Country, or which they were able to trade with neighbouring Nations. You are likely to be familiar with clapsticks, for example. Traditionally, this instrument could be made from a set of two clapsticks being paired and beaten against each other, or, as a single clapstick beaten against another object, such as the ground or a tree.
Clapsticks are a percussive instrument used for ceremony, social dancing, making music and songs and to educate through storytelling. As for many traditional tools, they can serve more than one purpose, like also being used to dig for yams or other bush foods.
When you see clapsticks today, you will notice that some are plain, while others are intricately designed and decorated or adorned. This depends of the maker, and the purpose for the clapsticks. Designs can be painted on, or burnt onto the wood.
Clapsticks are generally used to maintain rhythm and accompanied by vocals, but can be accompanied by other instruments like didgeridoos. Traditionally (and today) they were used by both men and women.
Another well-known Aboriginal instrument you are probably familiar with is the Didgeridoo or Yidaki. The didgeridoo is an end-blown wind instrument for men, and it has become somewhat of a symbolic icon associated with Aboriginal culture. In reality, not all Aboriginal groups had didgeridoos. They were originally found in Arnhem Land in Northern Australia and known as 'yidaki'.
Yidaki are usually made from tree limbs and trunks that have been hollowed out by fire or termites. Different lengths can make different sounds. They are played by blowing through vibrating lips directly into the mouthpiece.
New and contemporary music forms
New and contemporary ways of playing have evolved as use of the yidaki has spread across the Australia and indeed the globe, but the traditional method of playing continues to form an important and respected part of Aboriginal culture, as music forms a central element of ceremony.
Having clapsticks available for play in your classroom, or to be used during yarning circles for example, is a great tactile way to share this music with young children. Inviting Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander musicians into your centre to share their music with children is another great incursion idea, and a wonderful way to connect with your local community.
It is equally as important to share contemporary Aboriginal music with chidlren, to ensure we are celebrating the beauty of Aboriginal culture in its entirety, as an ever-changing entity, not a stagnant entity or a thing of the past.
Jordyn over at The Yulang Effect has created a deadly free downloadable resource titled First Nations Music for Australian Classrooms, in which she has collated 44 pieces of First Nations music designed for teachers to explore and celebrate Australia’s rich cultural heritage in a meaningful way.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have used song to pass on knowledge since the beginning of time. This tradition continues today through the powerful voices of First Nations singers and songwriters such as Emma Donovan, Mitch Tambo and Baker Boy. Whether it’s hip hop, country, soul or rock, First Nations music offers a rich opportunity to engage with traditional and contemporary perspectives on culture, history and identity for all ages.
Jordyn Green, The Yulang Effect
Songs range from fun children’s songs like Taba Naba, to lullabies like Ninganah Lullaby by Troy Cassar-Daley, to Gamilaraay versions of classics like Great Southern Land. It’s truly a great and eclectic list of First Nations music. When exploring these songs, use the provided information in the resource to learn about the First Nations artists, the nations they belong to, and the meanings behind their music.
Last year, Australian pop artist and proud Yorta Yorta and Gunditjmara man, Isaiah Firebrace, released a beautiful book called Come Together, Again, in which he takes children on a journey across First Nations culture through a celebration of music, song and dance.
What I love about this book is how it travels across 65,000 years of First Nations connections to music and dance. Children are introduced to how leaves can be used to whistle, to the beautiful sounds of the yidaki, to famous contemporary First Nations ballet dancers and hip-hop artists.
The Scholastic Teaching Notes for this book include some great activity ideas and further reading sources, some of which I have included below.
- Take a walk on Country and find some gum leaves suitable for leaf-whistling! Did you know that First Nations People used leaf whistling to copy bird sounds while hunting and to call kids home.
- Explore body clapping with your class. In Come Together, Again, Isaiah writes, ‘Tapping our chest, forearms or legs, or clapping our hands and stomping our feet, are all ways to add movement to a performance and to keep in rhythm and time’. Watch the YouTube I Just Can’t Wait to Be King—The Lion King Body Percussion by Music with Mrs Gibbs and have a go as a class.
- Explore well-known First Nations musicians and artists through listening to their music or watching their performances online.
- Invite a local First Nations dance group, singer, musician or band to perform at your service.
Music truly is at the heart of culture, and when we ensure that we are teaching children about a diverse range of both traditional and contemporary First Nations music styles and platforms, we open up to our children a world of rich cultural traditions spanning back 65,000 years.
Further reading/resources
The power of song: Sharing First Nations languages through music – Monash University (https://www.monash.edu/education/teachspace/articles/the-power-of-song-sharing-first-nations-languages-through-music)
Ngaya Ngaba sung on the Cheeky Tunes TV YouTube channel - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYW2MHmmp_0)
Play School episode Yarning and Dreaming – see how Christine Anu and Miah Madden reuse plastic bottle lids to make a musical instrument like a kulap from the Torres Strait Islands (https://iview.abc.net.au/show/play-school-yarning-and-dreaming)
Riley Callie Resources - First Nations educational books, toys and games