Page 45 - Islands Business May 2023

Music

MAIMAROSIA INSPIRES YOUTH THROUGH

INDIGENOUS SOLOMONS MUSIC

By Rowena Singh why do you sing louder than everyone else in the church?’ She
didn’t say anything, she just started laughing.
Western influences can at times corrupt and dilute tradi- “I then asked her another question, ‘Mum, do you think God
tional Pacific indigenous music, but one Melbourne-based, is deaf?’ She just kept laughing. But that was when my inter-
Solomon Islands musician is reversing this trend. est in music started.”
Charles Maimarosia headlined the Wantok Music Festival in Maimarosia also developed a profound interest in Are Are
Honiara in January this year, and is inspiring a new generation music at a young age after inheriting his first handmade coco-
of Solomon Islanders with his sound. nut shell ukulele from his father. He later began performing in
Raised in Pipisu village, Malaita, Maimarosia is known as his community, communicating ancient songs of his ancestors
a singer of important custom knowledge, drawing equally with hand-made panpipes.
on traditional and contemporary musical styles. His single “Growing up, every child is a fruit of their parents’ love,”
Haiamasina, is a love poem that illustrates Are Are customs says Maimarosia. “They are the beauty of their relationship.
and traditions. And as for me, growing up there’s a lot of sounds around me. I
“The show, [the Wantok Music Festival] was not just for me used to listen to panpipes.”
but for the youths and for the young people in the Solomon Maimarosia plays the panpipes and then the guitar for me,
Islands to rediscover their language and their traditions and showing how the notes are the same on both instruments,
to connect with their forefathers,” says Maimarosia. “Most before talking about another traditional instrument.
of them cried because they feel something that is there all “We used to have these huge drums that we called garamut
these years. They are learning signs, they are learning all in Papua New Guinea and parani o’o, in my language, Are Are.
sorts of things from around the world. And there is something In the Solomons, there are plenty of names for the drums,
that they missed and that is their language.” depending on where you come from. There are many cultures
Maimarosia notes that most of Solomon Islands’ 78 different in the Solomons, that beat drums and I come from one of
ethnic groups have their own languages. them. Parani o’o have certain beats and rhythms that were
“We have languages that are about the trees, the moun- composed by people in the past, our forefathers.”
tains and the birds, the oceans and everything in the oceans His motivation to make music is clear: “I do it because it’s a
and on the land that has names. fact that one day, these songs and the music like the bamboo
“Nowadays people learn languages like Chinese, English or and the drums and the language itself will disappear in the
other languages and they mix those up. I don’t think that I future. It is a fact.”
have a solution for that. It changes from generation to gen- The song Haiamasina talks of a ritual that is also disappear-
eration. ing.
“[But] we started to lose our songs that were in our lan- “All the young girls and boys used to date during moonlight,
guages, like our lullabies and songs that talk about events they used to paddle to the island. They would carry with them
in the past; wars, about love, about families, about coming a long 6-metre bamboo on their shoulder. On the first dating
together,” says Maimarosia. “Why it’s important is that if you night, they would put the bamboo on their shoulders (from
have a story from a culture, that story can be used for the the shoulder of the girl to the boy). They then tell stories
future generations.” about themselves, about where they are from. After every
He believes while the destination for many Solomon dating they used to cut the bamboo. So every time they go
Islanders is unknown, people need to look back “to discover dating they cut the bamboos until their bodies come together
ourselves, to know who we really are.” and they no longer need the bamboos. And that’s how they
started their relationship. These days people don’t use bam-
Beginnings boos any more, they use Skype.”
Maimarosia recalls being taken to church every morning Maimarosia hopes to have a new album out on the Wantok
and evening by his mother. “One morning I asked her, ‘Mum, Musik label this year.

Islands Business, May 2023 45