Indigenous music in Papua New Guinea: rubber thongs and bamboo tubes

 

Entertainment at the Ela Beach Craft Market in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, included an energetic bamboo band.

The 7-piece band, with women and children singers, played several traditional songs, and attracted a large crowd.

The style of Melanesian music uses natural hollow open-ended bamboo, tied together, typically in a pyramid or trapezoid shape. Five musical instruments are of this kind, while two are flute-type instruments (still of bamboo tubes) standing upright. Musicians hit (slap) the bamboo tubes with rubber thongs (flip-flops) - the rubber/plastic sandals worn on the feet. The flexible movement of the flip-flops gives it a distinct sound. The position of the bamboo tube designates the tone – from a deep tone to a higher pitch. The sound it produces is a unique style of melodious drumming that is richly rhythmical and tonal – as well as eye-catching and exciting.

Layered over the drumming was the delightful singing of women and children in traditional dress. The yellow painted stars on the troops’ faces resembled the stars of the Papua New Guinean flag.

The drumming sound is very different from the traditional kundu hand drum, the national emblem of Papua New Guinea. A kundu drum is hollowed from a tree and has a stretched piece of skin over the opening.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).