In north-east Arnhem Land languages, ganma is a word used to describe the place where the fresh water from a river meets the salt water of the sea. For the Yolngu, fresh water and salt water are significant opposites, and the turbulence and fertile potency of their meeting place is a powerful metaphor. The term is used in the Yirrkala community, especially in the school, to refer to the modern attempts to educate Yolngu children in ‘both ways’, that is the Yolngu way and the Balanda way. In this article, it refers to a musical text, the song ‘Treaty’ which, like ganma, represents a mixing of opposites.

The New Zealand popular music scene has seen a series of high points in recent years. Published in 1989 were John Dix's labour of love, Stranded in Paradise, a comprehensive history of New Zealand rock'n'roll; an influential report by the Trade Development Board, supportive of the local industry; and the proceedings of a well-supported Music New Zealand Convention held in 1987 (Baysting 1989). In the late 1980s, local bands featured strongly on the charts, with Dave Dobbyn (‘Slice of Heaven’, 1986), Tex Pistol (‘The Game of Love’, 1987) and the Holiday Makers (‘Sweet Lovers’, 1988) all having number one singles. Internationally, Shona Laing (‘Glad I'm Not A Kennedy’, 1987) and Crowded House (‘Don't Dream It's Over’, 1986) broke into the American market, while in Australia many New Zealand performers gathered critical accolades and commercial success.

A growing tendency to study Australian popular musics as an aspect of Australian cultural studies has begun to bear fruit in the form of long overdue appraisal of the socio-cultural and musical significance of these musics. Yet in our justified enthusiasm for the exciting horizons made visible by this development, it is possible to forget that music research can serve more traditional but nevertheless important functions. In the study of popular musics, in particular, knowing how music was played can be more important than knowing what piece of repertoire was performed. For example, discovering what was ‘done’ to music in performance can tell us about the sound of unrecorded genres and can facilitate (for whatever reason) the reconstructed performance of these genres. Knowing that specific performance gestures (such as ‘flattened’ or ‘blues’ notes) were applied can of course increase our understanding of the social, cultural, and even the political nature of specific musics. In this article I am mostly concerned with applying this notion of ‘doing things’ to music to the retrieval of musical information about a specific ensemble. This more or less indigenous ensemble, which was promoted in 1918 as ‘Australia's First Jazz Band’, has captured the imagination of Australian jazz writers and is widely considered to represent the beginning of Australian jazz (Bissett 1979, p. 9).

Of the seventy-five tracks issued as a historical survey of Australian country performers from 1936 to 1960, sixty-eight feature a yodelling interlude, and in many the yodelling forms the main part of the performance. The importance of this vocal technique in Australian country music, and its persistence till the present day is a striking feature of the genre. Prominent Australian performers such as Wayne Horsborough comment that yodelling before country audiences in the USA produces reactions of amazement, for the technique has been almost totally abandoned by current American performers. Yet because most historical commentary on Australian country music has stressed textual development, the presence of the yodel, a wordless interlude, is often merely noted, even if with an acknowledgement of the skill of performers in this technique. And for those in the present period wishing to promote Australian country music to a broader audience, the yodel tends to be a source of embarrassment. The country music industry today is preoccupied with ‘throwing off the hick image’ and emphasising the broad appeal of the genre, and to many current propagandists for Australian country music yodelling is an aspect of both the history and current state of the music which condemns them to commercial unacceptability. Yet it has remained popular with audiences and a significant number of performers, and recently a telemarketed album of yodelling songs by veteran country performer Mary Schneider sold at Australian platinum levels (Latta, 1991, p. 150). Country music clubs, which form a backbone of committed support for the genre, frequently organise local festivals where talent quests characteristically include yodelling competitions.

Those things that go under community music and people who call themselves community music practitioners and organisations, have got to remember all the community music that is happening anyway. But at this point in time I think that it is incredibly important to develop community music activities, to fuel the fire and create examples of what the possibilities are. The real community music will happen when that is generating spontaneously out of community. (Linsey Pollak, 28 January 1993)