A musical analysis of Wanji-wanji, an Aboriginal travelling song

Abstract

Many traditional Aboriginal Australian songs are no longer performed due to the complex history of colonial oppression of Aboriginal culture and the appeal of Western culture. In Australia, songs of the entertainment genre, known as a ‘corroboree’ have fared particularly badly (Turpin 2020, p. 250).

In this thesis, I present a musical analysis of one such song, Wanji-wanji, that was once performed over half the country (Turpin 2020). When different recordings of Wanji-wanji were played to Aboriginal elders, they never hesitated in their identification of it being the same song, though some noted it was sung differently to how they sang it. Through analysis and comparison of recordings of the song from different times and places, this thesis aims to identify elements that remain the same and elements that differ over time and location of this once popular song. To do so, this thesis analyses recordings from 15 different performances spanning 60 years across three different states: Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia.

The research finds that the number of melodic contours, setting of text to melody and ornamentation are exclusive to certain performances. These are elements that may attribute to singers’ claims that Wanji-wanji is the same but different. The identification of these musical features may shed light into what mechanisms function together to allow for a stable transmission, in contrast to stamps of regional identity or different periods of time.