The Ripple Effect of the First All-Women’s Band from West Arnhem Land

Abstract

This thesis examines what happens when women take control of the production and performance of contemporary rock music through an autoethnographic study of the Ripple Effect Band (REB) from Maningrida, a remote Indigenous community of West Arnhem Land, NT Australia. Since the 1960s, rock music has been popular in Arnhem Land, with bands like Yothu Yindi and King Stingray achieving national success both in Indigenous communities and across Australia. Yet Indigenous female musicians have been all but absent from participating in rock music-making. REB is the first all-women’s rock band from West Arnhem land. Popular in both Indigenous communities and mainstream Australia, they continue Indigenous rock music traditions but diverge as female instrumentalists, singers, songwriters and producers. Focusing on this innovative group of women aims to address how and why women have been sidelined in rock music.

As a non-Indigenous founding member of the band, the author of this thesis analyses intercultural collaboration using practice-based musical research demonstrating how a variety of perspectives can lead to innovative processes in composing, recording and performance and enhance the skills of the musicians in multiple ways. Musical and textual analysis of songs shows how the women of REB navigate gendered protocols and bias in their community and the rock music industry to make music in an all-women intercultural setting and act as positive role models for social change. Stepping into previously male-dominated roles of managing, producing and performing one’s own music can be life changing for women. Music provides a forum for negotiating agency and gaining status, contributing to transforming social relations by elevating the perspectives of women. REB has also contributed to instilling pride in language, culture and connection to country, fundamental to reversing the loss of endangered languages and cultural knowledge, a struggle that unites Indigenous men and women