Our musical collaborations began by playing and recording the three historic chants. I sought permission from two Aboriginal custodial associations in Sydney for the reproduction, performance, recording and re-composing of these chants.406
Barrabul-la, A Song of the Natives of New South Wales.407
The transcription below was rediscovered by Keith Vincent Smith in the British Library, London in September 2009. This evidence of Sydney’s Aboriginal music culture was documented in London by musician Edward Jones (1752-1824) as the most revered Aboriginal identity, Woollarawarre Bennelong (1764-1813) and his young kinsman Yemmerawanne (1774-1794) of Sydney’s Wangal clan sang in Mayfair, London in 1793.408
Singers: Matt Doyle and Clarence Slockee.
| Barrabul-la Clan Song.m4a |
| Sound table 6.18 |
This song makes Bannelong (after whom the site of the Sydney Opera House, Bennelong’s Point- reportedly as such in the Sydney press in 1803-was named) the joint creator of the earliest actual artifact from colonial Australia.[Captain John] Hunter also recorded that Bannelong sings when asked, but in general his songs arein a mournful strain, and he keeps time by swinging his arms’409
406See Appendix 6a.4Custodial permissions.
407 See Appendix 6a.5 for Burrabul-la information
408 Keith V. Smith,Mari Nawi Aboriginal Odysseys (Sydney:Rosenberg Publishing, 2010).
409 Graeme Skinner, G. (2011)”Toward a General History of Australian Musical Composition- First National Music 1788-1860.” (PhD diss.,The University Of Sydney, 2011). see-[news],The Sydney Gazette (22 May 1803), 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article 625581 ; see 2Hunter.
