| Description |
Tape#1: Music Background and Journey of Stenlly ToKulupa
Side A & B:
Stenlly ToKulupa was born before 1937 volcano eruption as he remembered seeing it as a small boy and not sure of his birth year.He grew up in his Tavui No.1 village and started school in 1947 at Tavui elementary then in 1950 he went on to Kerevat for intermediate school education.
Stenlly was self-taught playing the guitar and ukulele in 1948 usually by hiring guitars to learn from at a cost of 2 shillings per day. He then had the skills to play the guitar styles of 5-key, 3-key, Blue Mountain, Spanish key with firstly copycat songs from other music heard that were played by others mainly from radio broadcasts then copied their music till later composed his own songs.
His musical development has also been from traditional means through "tena buai" where its has ancestral spiritual connections for talent and skills in composition and performance of song and dance. Through this avenue Stenlly can perform music for traditional songs such as Warbat, Wutung and contemporary songs on strings like western country music.
He later started his own string band in 1970 known as "Rababatai Yankee Spiders" where he did recordings with RCA studios then later went on to set up other string bands in adjacent villages in the Tavui area known as No.1, No.2, No.3 villages.
His various songs composition were in Kuanua and Tok Pisin were mainly on life experiences, situations and events that occurred, nature and environment, living creatures where there is a message in the stories to be told and expressed in music.
In 1959, Stenlly had a fishing accident involving dynamite explosions for killing fish as a way of catching them in the sea that resulted in loss of his hands and eyesight but continued with his music then with compositions and vocal singing only to songs for his band where they earn a little bit of income for performances in the 1960s' to 1980s'.
Examples of compositions were from invitations to compose for a Kabakada camp for disabled people, a broken relationship of man leaving behind a relative women to politically related unrest of the Mataungan Association which stood for local native rights in the Australia colonial administration led by past East New Britain politicians of John Kaputin and Oscar Tamur.
String band performances were in organised in villages for dance parties called "cup tea" for fundraising with food and drinks, village ceremonies like weddings or private function type gatherings. These events are usually go from 6pm to 6am and the organisers invite multiple string bands to take turns in performances for entertainment of the audiences or crowds during the course of the evening till day break. There is also the element of competition amongst string bands and also the act of attracting attention of the best of music performance as well as females towards the performers.
The music also encourages dancing and many external influences of the South Seas and expatriates and local people who go overseas have introduced the dance culture of waltz and foxtrot that were popular then.
There are also certain ancestral and spiritual relationships that influences and connects the natural world to supernatural world which the Tolai has their belief systems towards expressive power of performance in music. These include such terms in Kuanua for music performances of "kakailai" and "malagene" or song and dance through forces of attraction to the music such as "langorong" and other powers of "kabang", "tar", kavavar", "midal" applied to the performers and instruments with chants of "tabaria", "marue". Some common signals of warning or "vakilang" to end a song during performances are "taxi" or "hula".
General conversations were around the influence of his music through composition and learning songs and playing them fro other parts of the country or overseas.
(Steven Gagau, May 2019) |
