Melanesian music refers to the various musical traditions found across the vast region of

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

. Vocal music is very common across Melanesia; Hand gestures are an important part of many songs, and most traditional music is

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded da ...

. left, Wax cylinder recording from German New Guinea on August 23, 1904, recorded by German anthropologist Rudolf Pöch. Folk instruments include various kinds of drums and slit-log

gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

s, flutes,

panpipes A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

, stamping tubes, rattles, among others. Occasionally, European

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

s and

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

s are also used.See also Stern (2000).

Notes

References

* Ammann, Raymond. 2012. ''Sounds of Secrets: Field Notes on Ritual Music and Musical Instruments on the Islands of Vanuatu''. KlangKulturStudien – SoundCultureStudies, 7. Berlin: LIT Verlag. * Crowe, Peter. 1994. ''Vanuatu (Nouvelles Hébrides): Singsing-Danis Kastom–Musiques Coutumières''. AIMP XXXIV, CD-796. Genève: VDE-GALLO. *. * Huffman, Kirk. 1996. Single bamboo flutes. In Joël Bonnemaison; Kirk Huffman; Christian Kaufmann, & Darrell Tryon (eds), ''Arts of Vanuatu''. Bathurst: Crawford House Press. pp. 150–153. * Stern, Monika. 2000. La permanence du changement ou les métissages musicaux au Vanuatu. ''Cahiers de Musiques Traditionnelles'' n°13 "Métissages". Genève: Georg/ADEM, 179–202. * Zemp, Hugo. 1979. Aspects of ’Are’are Musical Theory. ''Ethnomusicology'' 23 (1): 5-48. * Zemp, Hugo. 1994. ''’Are’are Panpipe Ensembles''. Paris: Le Chant du Monde.