Music of Tuvalu

The traditional music of Tuvalu consists of dances, including fatele, fakanau and fakaseasea. The influence of the Samoan missionaries sent to Tuvalu by the London Missionary Society from the 1860s resulted in the suppression of songs about the traditional religions or magic and many songs were lost. As the influence of the missionaries diminished in the 20th century the traditional dances were revived and the siva dance tradition from Samoa also became popular. The fatele, in its modern form, is performed at community events and to celebrate leaders and other prominent individuals.

Te titi tao is a traditional skirt placed upon another skirt - a titi kaulama - and tops (teuga saka), headbands, armbands, and wristbands continue to be used in performances of the fatele.

Te Vaka, an Oceanic music group, contains Tuvaluans and musicians with Tuvaluan ancestry; Te Vaka performs original contemporary Pacific music or "South Pacific Fusion".

Traditional music prior to European contact included poems performed in a sort of monotonal recitation, though this tradition has since become extinct.

In 1960-1961 Gerd Koch, an anthropologist, made recordings of traditional songs on the atolls of Niutao, Nanumaga and Nukufetau. These songs were considered in a 1964 musicological publication, with a selection of the songs published in 2000 as Songs of Tuvalu together with two CDs of the recorded songs.

The influence of the Samoan missionaries sent to Tuvalu by the London Missionary Society from the 1860s resulted in the suppression of songs about the traditional religions or magic, with the Samoan missionaries also influencing the development of the Tuvaluan language. The missionaries introduced church hymns and European song structures and melodies started to influence Tuvaluan music. However some pre-missionary songs survived and were recorded by Gerd Koch. In the early 1960s the transistor radio provided access to European pop music and the Hawaiian/Tahitian guitar rhythms, which influenced modern Tuvaluan music. The recordings of Gerd Koch continue to be broadcast over Radio Tuvalu along with modern Polynesian music.

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Wikipedia