Falling water, insects, wind

IN THE KEY OF H: Taonga puoro maker and player Norm Heke and classical guitarist Chaitanya Santana Temepara step outside Western scale-based music to create a unique sound. “We’re trying to push the audience’s ear,” says Temepara. “I’m classically trained but at the moment I’m into abstraction.” Picture supplied

Chaitanya Santana Temepara

Like running water down the valley in the mist, says classical guitarist Chaitanya Santana Temepara of Chinese lute music.

To broaden his exploration of music outside non-Western forms, the Uawa-Tolaga Bay musician is reading about music made on the guitar-like instrument known as pipa.

On Sunday, Temepara joins taonga puoro maker and player Norm Heke at Eastwoodhill arboretum’s End of the Summer Wine concert that also features singers Mere Boynton and Ora Taukamo.

Taonga puoro have five to six notes and microtones within, says Temepara. The music he and Hekeare exploring together with traditional Maori musical instruments and Spanish guitar is essentially improvisatory and outside music based on Western scales.

“It’s more relevant than playing Bach’s cello suites,” says Temepara.

“It’s not easy. Both of you have to be open. We work from a structure but every time, it’s different. It’s an experimental project. We’re trying to venture into new territory.”

The familiarity of structures and harmonic patterns we hear in Western music from medieval chanson to thrash death-metal is scale based, structured and “comfortable”.

“People’s ears become accustomed to what’s comfortable to them. We’re offering different nuances.

“With Norm, one of the things I’m trying is open tuning. I try to tune my guitar so it’s sympathetic with notes he’s got. We’re trying to be more descriptive. It’s all about rhythm and tone. I’m not really into how many notes but how I feel it and hear it and feeling the instrument resonate. We’re looking at soundscapes.”

Norm Heke

Singer Mere Boynton, the headline act for the concert at Eastwoodhill will include a soundscape work in her repertoire — Gillian Whitehead’s Vocalise which is made up of bird song and insect noises.

Insects have a close relationship with the spirit of taonga puoro. In early times the making and playing of taonga puoro was inspired by ngahere, the bush, says Heke.

“So it’s fitting we are playing at Eastwoodhill. A lot of taonga puoro are named after insects. The goddess of music is Hineraukatari.”

Hineraukatauri is personified as the case moth, on which the musical instrument putorino is modelled.

Heke has made and played taonga puoro for the past 15 years. All of his instruments are modelled on those in the Te Papa national museum collection.

One of his wind instruments is made from the bones of a toroa (albatross). Many taonga puoro have a soulful or mournful sound, he says. The toroa bone instrument has it’s own tone.

“I play it in a more soulful way rather than ‘deedlideet deedlideet’.”

The quest for the deedlideet sound was possibly what drove late 19th century ethnographer Elsdon Best to find similarities between taonga puoro wind instruments and European woodwind.

“He tried to decide what the instruments were and compared them to the fife and flute.

“When you listen to the wind it comes up and comes down. When you listen to water flowing, it’s a tone. Wind through a valley, or a bird flying past — with taonga puoro you’re trying to pick that as opposed to ditty tunes.

“You can’t define a key in taonga puoro. A friend who heard one of the instruments I played said it was in the key of H.”