Tuvalu 1955 | A 2-Hour Journey Through Island Chant, Massed Part Singing and Lament

🌍 Country 183 of 197 | The 1955 Series | Around This Dot 1955 Tuvalu, which that year was the Ellice Islands: nine low coral islands strung over five hundred miles of ocean, about five thousand people, and nowhere more than a few feet above the sea. Two and a half hours of music as it might have sounded there in 1955, across four suites: the old chants of the island and the surf; the assembly hall and the struck box; the branching island chorus; and a closing pair leading into the Pan-Tuvalu Inter-Region Folk Extended Suite. CHAPTERS 0:00 Suite I: Songs of the Coral Island and the Surf An old man chants alone on the ocean side of a narrow low island at the end of the day with the surf running steadily behind him, the phrases very long with no beat under them, the voice level and slightly hoarse and set down plainly without any decoration on it. Beside it a mat in the shade of a thatched house in the middle of the day, an old man singing at the very bottom of his range while two women hold one thin high tone above him. Closes with the Songs of the Coral Island and the Surf Extended Suite. 39:48 Suite II: The Assembly Hall and the Box A shallow chest laid flat on a mat with eight or nine people round it, every pair of hands coming down together in one simultaneous stroke so the box gives one flat wide slap, the strokes very far apart with whole seconds of empty air between them, while underneath a coconut half is worked steadily against a toothed blade. Then the whole village seated in a wide open hall, sounding one wordless texture in several set parts at once over a body of men holding one low bass drone. Closes with The Assembly Hall and the Box Extended Suite. 1:20:47 Suite III: The Island Chorus and the Box A crowd sits close together on mats under a thatched roof at the end of the day, all carrying one long sustained line while one voice and then another lifts out of it into a branch of its own, running above or below the others for a while and slipping back with nothing agreed first. With it the same box again, this time struck by one man sitting at it alone, a single pair of hands bringing down one stroke and then nothing for whole seconds. Closes with The Island Chorus and the Box Extended Suite. 1:56:38 Suite IV: Heritage and Inter-Region Before the light comes up a woman sits on a mat in a thatched house with the household awake around her and only the surf sounding outside, letting out long phrases that begin high and come down in slow wide steps, the voice thinning almost to breath at the end of each descent before she draws it up again. Then people shoulder to shoulder on mats in the open, holding one long line out above the box struck once and left alone. Closes with the Pan-Tuvalu Inter-Region Folk Extended Suite. ABOUT 1955 In 1955 Tuvalu was the Ellice Islands, nine low coral islands strung over five hundred miles of ocean with a total land area of about ten square miles and a population of roughly five thousand. They formed the southern half of a British colony administered from the Gilbert group far to the north, an arrangement that suited nobody: the Ellice were Polynesian and the Gilberts of the northern island world, and the two had little in common beyond a resident commissioner. The Ellice voted to separate in 1974 and became independent as Tuvalu in 1978. Copra was effectively the whole cash economy, supplemented by remittances from men working the phosphate diggings far to the west. Nowhere on any of the islands is more than a few feet above the sea, there are no rivers and no hills, and the water supply was rain caught off roofs. The music heard here belongs to those islands. ABOUT THE SERIES Around This Dot is a journey around our planet through sound. The 1955 Series visits every country on Earth, one country at a time, capturing the music a listener might have heard there in 1955. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, 197 countries in total. DISCLOSURE Music composed by AI and audio performed by AI based on detailed historical and ethnomusicological prompts. These are approximations of regional traditions, not authentic recordings. Two things are worth naming. The four-part hymnody brought by the mission dominates the music of these islands more completely than almost anywhere else, and it is both religious and brought from elsewhere, so it is described and left alone rather than approximated. And the famous sitting dance of these islands accelerates from beginning to end; its identity is that acceleration, so the form is not rendered here, although the wooden box it is played on is. This country also has no stringed instruments of any kind, which is why the album is carried almost entirely by voices. Created for educational and ambient listening purposes. #Tuvalu #EllicIslands #Polynesia #Pacific #IslandChant #PartSinging #Lament #1950s #AmbientMusic #WorldMusic #AroundThisDot