What got me started..

Kia ora koutou.

Ko Ngongotahā te maunga

ko Utuhina te awa

Ko Rotorua nui a Kahu te moana

Ko Tunohopū te Marae

Ko Ngāti Tunohopū, Ko Ngāti Taeotū ngā hapū

Nō te whānau Kahukiwa, te whānau McRae ahau

Ko Ngāti Whakaue te iwi

He uri hoki ahau nō Ngāi tūhoe, nō te Aitanga a-Mahaki

E kō koia e ara e!!

Follow my journey as I document and interact with those also involved with the awakening of our Māori drums, the transferring of the established rhythmic language to the drums. First though let me set the scene:

I was born in Rotorua and at a young age we moved to mum's hometown, Christchurch.

There was a lot of love in my upbringing. My mum's family were tight knit and supported each other through everything. My dad was a rugby league player so I wanted to be one too. As a young man, I believed I would follow the footsteps of my idols at the time - James Leuluai, Clayton Friend, Gary Freeman, Kevin Iro, Brendan Tuuta, Olsen Filipaina to name a few.

Making sound was really a dream - one day in music class at Mairehau High school, my music teacher suggested I play an instrument if I wanted to continue with music..see the thing is I joined the class, just to listen..Everyone could play something - not me!

My lovely music teachers (the two Margarets), offered me the last instrument in the music cupboard that worked - a tuba..umm thanks but no thanks. How was I going to get THAT to school on my bike OR the bus? - the school bus was always packed and I had some street cred I didn't want to damage. The best thing was to just say I was going to learn something just to stay in the class and listen to everything they taught me about music.

I was fascinated with the life of Beethoven, the sound of Bela Bartok, Schubert and Debussy..but I had no interest in playing music like them. I liked Carlos Santana, Steely Dan and Bob Marley. That was it. Simple.

One day the guy who had the only saxoph9ne in the school left to go live in Oz. he told me I should ask the Margarets if I could play the sax when he left.

I pretty much ran to the music department to make sure that I could stay in music class, by learning the saxophone.

It was mine! 

Not long after, a local legend started teaching saxophone at our school. Stu Buchanan changed my life the day I met him.

He got me falling in love with the saxophone and my rugby and league obsession, started to fade rapidly.

Soon the deal was sealed when the milk truck I worked on after school, lightly crashed into a powerpole. I was standing on the side of the truck and my leg got caught between the truck and powerpole. That was my rugby career gone so I turned to music full time.

Stu learned te reo māori on a sheep shearing station in Te Kuiti so he conversed with me in te reo in our lessons.

He also told me a bit about kōauau and Māori instruments. Perhaps Stu could see that one day they would play a big part in my life?

As time went by, I studied Jazz in 1991 at Christchurch Polytech and met alot of great musicians from all over the world.

I became more andmore interested in the rhythms of Sth America, of Brazil of Africa. I wondered what ever happened to our own rhythmic language?

The drums of Tahiti, Marquesas, Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, Rarotonga etc were out there, they were developed, sounded amazing and they were being heard throughout the world.

Where were our drums fro te ao Māori? Our rhythms were in haka, in poi, in mōteatea, in oriori..but no drums??!

I asked percussionist and drummer friends -  especially seeking out the Māori artists who may have the keys or the clues, I asked tohunga in different disciplines, talked deeply with taonga pūoro practitioners, whare tapere facilitators, I asked experts from te ao Māori, ethnomusicologists, found and read book after book from times of first european contact with our tūpuna, talked to elders - I searched every corner I could and came up with breadcrumbs.

I tried to give the breadcrumbs to my drummer and percussionist specialist friends.I waited for 20 years for it to happen.

Waiting, waiting for someone else to follow the breadcrumbs.

This blog series is to document the journey to working out that it was me who had to step up, follow the breadcrumbs and walk into that forest.