Born to sing: Fiji's "singing culture" and implications for music education in Canada

McGill Journal of Education, Fall 2001 by Joan Russell

I sang with Fijians and/or witnessed spontaneous and organized singing in a variety of social contexts. I sang hymns with congregations in five Protestant churches and attended three choir rehearsals in two churches. I taught a music lesson to Fijian school children in Tagaqe District School, listened to their singing, and watched their performance of ritual melee, a traditional action-dance, based on chanted texts and accompanied by music and prescribed movements. One afternoon, on a hillside in Suva, I sang for more than an hour with Maciu, while his wife Ta prepared the evening meal. We sang our way through a book of songs whose words I did not know, but whose melodies used familiar musical patterns, idioms that I was accustomed to hearing in western vocal music. This commonality of musical knowledge made it possible for me to harmonize ad lib.

Whereas many of my experiences were unplanned and serendipitous, my encounters with singers in the communities of Vatualalai and Tagaqe were organized. On a Sunday morning in July I attended a service at the tiny Methodist church in Vatualalai, a small community on the Korolevu coast. This community has clan connections to the island of Vatulele, which I had visited previously. After the service, I asked a young man if he could take me to the home of the village chief. As it turned out, the young man was the son of Spiro, chief of the village. Spiro invited me to join him on the floor where he was sitting with friends on soft hand-woven pandanus-leaf mats that covered the concrete floor of the receiving room. I explained that I had been to Fiji before, that I was a music teacher, that I had written about the singing that I heard in Fiji and that I was interested in learning more about Fijian singing. I asked for his permission to attend the church choir rehearsals and I told him that I would like to learn about the singing in an elementary school. Spiro gave me permission to attend choir rehearsals, assigned Kalawa, the assistant choir director (who had no formal music training) and lay preacher, to be my liaison and instructed him to arrange a visit to Tagaqe District School, a school for Grades 1-8. With the granting of this permission, I had access to the village and felt comfortable about walking there and speaking to people. I was confident that the village grapevine would quickly ensure that villagers knew who I was and why I was in their midst. Indeed, during the week, various staff in my hotel came up to me and identified themselves as the mother, husband, or sister-in-law of a church choir member, or a child at Tagaqe District School.

On Tuesday morning Kalawa and I joined the school children on the bus. Kalawa introduced me to Samuela, the headmaster, explained who I was and why I wanted to visit the school. Samuela talked to me about the organization, financing and administration of the school. He explained that students usually sing at morning assembly, and at the end of the school day. He informed me that there are no music teachers in Fijian schools, and classroom teachers, who lead the singing, are not trained in music. Samuela invited me to return in the afternoon to give a music class and to come again on Friday afternoon to watch the students perform traditional melee for tourists. I videotaped the Friday performance and showed the film to the children.