| Description |
Tape#1: Musical Journey and experiences of Team Nanuk stringband and performances in Gazelle Peninsula early 1950s.
Side A & B:
Conversations of how Team Nanuk stringband started through various participants in Kania, Patrick, Alois, Clement, James on how music was introduced to Nanuk Village, Kokopo District.
Learning how to play a guitar and the first guitar introduced to Nanuk village was after the War from 1945 with influence of the missionaries of South Seas and during colonization where guitars were introduced throughout the New Guinea Islands Region coming in from Solomon Islands so Bouganville, New Ireland and New Britain and Manus were exposed to stringband music.
Joseph Marum first brought a guitar when he returned from work in Kavieng, New Ireland and Salamua, Bulolo in Morobe to the Nanuk village and taught the group in the conversation to then formed Team Nanuk. The stringband performed in various places in the Gazelle Peninsula and were paid in traditional shell money up to 10 fathoms.
Team Nanuk was claimed to be the first stringband in the Gazelle Peninsula and were hired to perform in various places in villages, areas, towns of Rabaul and Kokopo. The examples of villages where they performed are in the local government areas of Rabaul such as Matupit, Talvat, Nodup, Tavui to north coast to central Gazelle in Navunaram, Malmaluan to Toma to Kokopo in Bitapaka, Vunamami and so on.
The style and tunes of guitars played was 5-key then the stringband later learnt and played Blue Mountain and 3-key tunes of plucking, picking and strumming of the guitars supported by ukuleles’. Morris Sangga who lived in Kokopo assisted he group with the new styles and tunes.
The stringband composed their own songs in Kuanua and Tok Pisin and described an example of “Lili”. The styles of playing guitars called “rough” or strumming with the combination of 5-key, blue mountain, 3-key and harmonising to a set rhythm or melody of songs. It is similar to jamming or rough music especially played at social “cup tea” nights when they are performing and the people drinking alcohol
A demonstration of the songs played are a Samoan song “To paia lalau pele”, a Tolai song “A vavina na sikul” and Tok Pisin song “U lukim mi paitim gita” and “Laveli bilong Mangas”. Various explanations and meaning of the songs where outlined.
(Steven Gagau, February 2019) |
