During the many centuries that passed between the settlement of the Pacific islands and the arrival of the first European explorers, the Polynesians developed a rich and complex culture that acquired subtly different features on the different islands.
The inhabitants of Hawaii based their music on ritual songs, art that was divided into two basic forms:
Mele Hula: It is when the song is composed for the dance that accompanies.
Melo Oli: The Singing by itself.
Hula dancers: The ancient art of singing and dancing of the Hula continues to be held every April during the Merrie Monarch Festival from the island of Hawaii and at festivals around the world.
The accompaniment consisted mostly of percussion: the great drum pahu made of a hollowed palm trunk and topped by a very tense shark skin, it spread throughout Polynesia from Tahiti while Hawaii distinguished itself by drums I PU, Smaller and made of pumpkin.
Under foreign influence, the islanders began to sing melodies in addition to rhythmic songs. the two main sources were the hymns taught by the Christian missionaries of the United States and the popular music (and the guitars) brought by the Mexican cowboys, arrived to deal with the new cattle farms.
The nineteenth century advanced and with it came immigrants from all over the world, including a Portuguese gang that, in 1878, took the small braguinha (cavaquinho) with four strings, which would later become a Ukulele
The first missionaries condemned the hula As lascivious and immoral. But in 1883 King David Kalakaua (1836-1891) acceded to the throne, who was determined to reinvigorate Hawaiian culture in the face of foreign intrusion.
The so-called Monarch Alegre encouraged island music, even forming his own group of UKULELES!
Marlene Carlos @ mizo.tzk
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