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Singing the Land: the Power of Performance in Aboriginal Life

By Jill Stubington

For the Indigenous people of Australia, songs and dances, have encoded their history and religion, their social organisation, and their connectedness to the land for 60,000 years. As research assistant to the eminent musicologist Alice Moyle, and later on her own behalf, Jill Stubington spent many years between 1960 and 1980 in remote regions of Australia learning to listen to this music, to understand its complexity, its central role in identity, social cohesion, celebration and the resolution of family conflict. From 1960 new sound and film equipment widened the opportunities for recording; and soon the guitar and recorded popular music began to intermingle with the traditional styles. It became a matter of urgency to use the new technology to preserve the old culture. In three sections the book details the diverse culture, its musical instruments and practice; and provides listening guides to the available CDs and notations.

DR JILL STUBINGTON is a senior academic at the School of Music and Music Education, the University of New South Wales. She came to the study of Aboriginal Music in 1967 when she joined Alice Moyle at Monash University and copied, notated and edited hundreds of her recordings. She has taught and published widely on Aboriginal music and society and has been influential in introducing generations of students the study of non-Western music.

ISBN-13 - Hardback:978-0-9802802-2-7;  Paperback:978-0-9802802-3-4

Anyone who is interested in Aboriginal culture should read this book.
It deserves to become one of the defining texts of Aboriginal music and dance.

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