Of Stars and Birds
EDUCATION KIT
A musical exploration by composer and author Nardi Simpson's of her Yuwalarray heritage and the traditional story of birds and the creation of the Southern Cross.
This kit created with support of
Santa Sabina College and
Ensemble Offspring, for the 2021
Santa Sabina "Australian Music Day".
Inspiration
Of Stars and Birds developed from a significant Yuwaalaraay story ending in the creation of the southern cross but traversing the enormity of land, lore, death and rebirth. Birds weave this story into our dreaming cosmos, the conventional limitations of earth, sky, death, day, life and night dissolving and creating its own universe of existence – a bit like my compositional craft, a mixture of tradition and innovation- teachings that extend between the storytelling and songmaking of Australia’s First People's and the explorations and expressions of a new music composer at the beginning of exciting, musical journeys.
photo Trevor Dalton
Of Stars and Birds - Education Kit
Nardi Simpson © 2021
Reflecting into the Stars
Of Stars and Birds was written after an invitation to contribute to Ensemble Offspring's birdsong collection. As a new composer in the earliest development stages of my craft, I worried how my work would stand alongside the pieces of experienced, accomplished composers who had already contributed to this series. As an Aboriginal musician with limited music theory, I also worried if I could create something of a standard suitable for the ensemble and its project partners.
In times like this I look to culture to provide guidance. I quickly realised Yuwaalaraay knowledge, connection and relationship to birds equalled the complexity and detail of advanced musical theory, compositional practice and creative conception. So, I worked hard
to imbue this piece with the things I know well, cultural concepts and knowledge, enabling a transformation away from a commissioned composition and into an extension of my own lived and practiced cultural experience.
Of Stars and Birds - Education Kit
Nardi Simpson © 2021
As told by Senior Nhunggabarra Knowledge Holder Uncle Tex Skuthorpe
Making of the Southern Cross
“In the Creation time, two men and a woman came from the red country and had been shown which plants they could eat to stay alive. They did this for a long time, but then a big drought came, and they were hungry. One man killed a wallaby, even though he was told by the other man that he should not, as he did not know the law of that totem (the wallaby). He and the woman ate some of it. The other man refused and walked across the sandhills and the river until he came to a big white gum tree. He lay down and died there. A spirit saw that he did not break the law, and put him in the hollow of the tree, and then lifted the tree into the sky, followed by two white cockatoos screeching, because their roosting place was in the tree. The tree was placed in the southern sky, where it faded and only the eyes of the spirit and the man could be seen, forming the Southern Cross. The two cockatoos still fly after the Southern Cross and are the Pointers. This is the story of the first death of man. The She-Oak trees sigh in the wind, and the gum trees cry tears of blood (gum) to mourn for the first death of Aboriginal people. In the system of levels of meaning in stories, the first level explains how the Southern Cross was created, why the gum tree bleeds a resin, and why the She-Oak sighs in the wind. The second level describes the first death and the law about burial (in a tree). The third level explains the law about not killing a totem animal, and a fourth level explains how the spirits take the people to the sky.”
Treading Lightly: The Hidden Wisdom of the World's Oldest People, Tex Skuthorpe & Karl Erik Sveiby, Allen & Unwin, 2006
Of Stars and Birds - Education Kit
Nardi Simpson © 2021
Composing Birdsong
These bird-like motives appear at times in more tempo based situations, and at other times the indiaction "Ad Lib, Birds trying to settle and sleep" tells the performer to play in a more loose and atmospheric manner.
Of Stars and Birds features a number of simple gestures that capture the character of birdsong. Short phrases with a combination of small and large leaps, plus pointillistic articulation give a string sense of the dynamic character of Australian bird song.
Of Stars and Birds - Education Kit
Nardi Simpson © 2021
DIY
Birdsong and other landscape composing processes you can try yourself.
DIY 1 - Bird Song Composing
Go for a walk in your local suburb and record sounds of birds. Choose a couple of short phrases that you like and try to notate them. You can draw the contour of the bird song first using graphic shapes. Then go to a piano and try to find APPROXIMATE pitches. Get a sense of the natural pulse of each bird song by singing the song and tapping your thigh at the same time.
N.B. Remember that your version will be a simplified version of the real thing. You do not need to use complex rhythms.
DIY 2 - Visual Harmony
Take photos in a natural landscape. Review these at home. Take note of the atmosphere of the photos. Go to a piano and find intervals that suit that atmosphere. Large intervals will suit more open landscape and smaller intervals will suit more dense landscapes. Register is important also. Higher notes have a lighter feel, whereas lower notes have a darker feeling. Write a series of 4 note chords which capture this atmosphere in different ways. Now make an ostinato using these notes.
DIY 3 - Star Texture Accompaniment
Now that you have mastered birdsong and landscape you can try a star texture. Firstly write a list of characteristics that a star texture would have. What type of instruments, register, intervals, articulations and dynamic would you use?
Go to a piano and improvise a star texture... notice what sort of pulse the music has. How would you capture that likely LACK of a sense of pulse with notation. Could you use extended musical notations to achieve the desired atmosphere?
photo Paean Ng
Visiting Eucalyptus - Education Kit
Nardi Simpson © 2021
Nardi Simpson
Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay storyteller from NSW’s north west freshwater plains. As a member of Indigenous duo Stiff Gins, Nardi has travelled nationally and internationally for the past 22 years, performing in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Vietnam and the Pacific Islands. She is also a founding member of ‘Freshwater,’ an all-female vocal ensemble formed to revive the language and singing traditions of New South Wales river communities.
Nardi is a graduate of Ngarra Burria First People’s Composers with compositions performed and recorded by the Royal Australian Navy Band and Ensemble Offspring and in 2020, two of Nardi’s compositions featured in ABC Classic’s Fresh Start Initiative.
Currently undertaking PhD study through ANU School of Music in Composition, Nardi is the current musical director of Barayagal, a cross cultural choir based at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. With countryman Matt Doyle, she also co-teaches Chamber Ensemble, exploring cultural narratives and improvisational performance.
Nardi’s debut debut novel ‘Song of the Crocodile’, winner of the 2017 Black&Write! Fellowship has been shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian and NSW Premiers Literary Awards and was longlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Award. Nardi currently lives in Sydney’s inner west and continues to be heavily involved in the teaching and sharing of culture in both her Sydney and Yuwaalaraay communities.