First: these old scales aren't state secrets. I decoded ones from NZ, and it turns out that they're applicable to French Polynesia. ...

It's the same the world over: we're just barely recognised as a classical instrument, and they all think that it's like rock. Newsflash:...

I reversed the 3rd and 4th steps of the Niuean/Society Islands one. Sounded good.

Unfortunately for the NZSO, they didn't commission the piece, I'm not a professor, and therefore they have to pay a very hefty licencing...

I don't need those resources to flourish as a musician or as a thinker. I'd rather get a job, but I'll admit that my mental health isn't...

She's a really early fan. Saw a film that I'd written music for in 2015. Plus she's friends with Barbara. Went to Question Time when she...

Weeded Out can't legally exist. Sorry, you lose. 1. It already exists as a webseries, and as a film-within-the-film of The Dakumentary....

I graduated in 2015, and haven't taken a course since. They haven't funded my career, yet they have taken credit for my work, and now...

I realise that people aren't saying Polynesian in parlance anymore, but it's still useful as an academic descriptor. Pasifika is the new...

That's an option in New Zealand for minor offences, but producing a professional film in which all the workers are waged doesn't count as...

Looked up the board, noticed that there were no indie people. That's why you failed me. Steve Barr isn't an indie dude, though he's made...

I finally read that piece by Meryle Secrest about how he was frigid in bed, though curiously, she didn't discuss his male partners. Yes,...

Some photos that are largely more recent (post-2022).

An attempt to divine a Samoan enharmonic from a tapa cloth. https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/149596?page=1&rtp=1&ros=1&asr=1&ass...

This is true of classical music and dramatic music, not every single job. Men = composer by default. Women = composer by second default....

It's not like every tapa contains those mysteries. Relational circles are how we theorise those micro-harmonies in the West, not just in...

Historical Fiction from the Priest-Navigator’s Point of View The Blue Pacific Civilisation Before Cook, before the Union Jack, before missionaries recast Polynesian memory in the language of the Bible, Oceania was already a civilisation in full . It was not an empire, with capitals and armies, but something subtler and more enduring: a Blue Continent , its highways made of ocean swells, its archives stored in chants and constellations. From Hawai‘i in the north to Rapa Nui in

That's the main underpinning of The Perfumed Garden; although some of them line up with both conventional jazz and Eastern modes, they're...

Amanda Michelina (Ngāti Hikairo, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Oneone) This essay is the third in a series of essays on Māori music: https://www.amandamichelinasprogressiveparty.com/post/uneven-intervals-and-musical-hubs-a-comparative-study-of-m%C4%81ori-and-persian-traditions https://www.amandamichelinasprogressiveparty.com/post/mari-hamunata-and-the-hybrid-waiata-tradition Introduction The study of Māori music has too often been framed through analytical categories imported from Wes

Chords: Dm7, Am7, Abm, G, F#, Bsus4/E Dm7 Am7 They call him Chippy: Abm Gm Reminds me of Mr. Whippy. Dm7...