Summary of research results
Conclusion founded on the initial area of research concerning the organology of aboriginal musical instruments from Taiwan and New Zealand highlight two main factors, the first being the abundant quantity of Aerophones catalogued for each culture, this classification is further expanded by the vast assorted and variety of flutes and quasi-flute models. While the New Zealand Austronesian database doesn’t exhibit the cylindrical diversity found in its Taiwanese equivalent, which includes use of single and double pipe, drone and multi-holed combinations, it does show extensive use of deviation within a basic form. Playing techniques used in both cultures appear to have little in common, the nose flute techniques employed in divisions of the Taiwan dataset requires air pressure to the cylindrical resonant cavity with a considerable reduced pressure than that of the Maori equivalents, this is further disconnected by the Māori nose flute being highly disputed by leading researches in Maori ethnomusicology. Furthermore, the manufacturing, production techniques and materials employed in each set flutes samples appear to share no commonalities with the exception that the placement of finger holes which are governed by the manufactures individual digit ratio, this unit of measurement is found universally and can be no indication of relationships in production techniques. If there is a relationship to be found in these two sets of instruments it is to be found exclusively in the timbral identity produced by the Koauau of the Maori and the Headhunting flutes used predominately in the Northern Taiwan aboriginal cultures. This conclusion can be drawn confidently due to the analysis of sonic signatures exhibited by each sets spectrum, centroid, brightness and roughness features which recurred constantly in identical k-means clusters.
Another secondary finding in regards to the organology of Austronesian speaking Taiwan and New Zealand is the absolute lack of Membranophones used by both cultures (Table 3-I Indigenous Musical Instruments from Taiwan and New Zealand). Surprisingly, an instrument category that is generally considered to be an essential component of Polynesian material culture and ethnomusicology appears to be completely absent in both New Zealand and Taiwan. The
85 issue of the deficiency in drums, and percussion in general, is a possible subject of further enquiry for studies in Austronesian Ethnomusicology and could assist in the understanding of musical migration routes though the pacific.
Selected instruments from both cultures were both confirmed in the historical literature and in current aboriginal society. The acquisition of these Austronesian (and non-Austronesian) instruments, along with the musicians and instructors necessary demonstrate playing techniques was essentially a successful endeavour. Field work in both countries provided an acceptable database with which harmonic analysis could be performed as well as instruction on performance techniques with which further samples could be recorded. The acquisition of historical recordings which could have for validation, or dispute, of the modern harmonic signature was not achieved. While this was not essential to the principal concepts of this research, it would have strengthened the data by confirming the timbre produced by modern and historical recordings exhibited a similar timbral signature.
With regard to the principal concern of this research, the results clearly placed both Rukai and Paiwan double pipe flutes in the same cluster due to their unique sonic signature of emphasising 1f, 2f, 3f and for overblown dynamics samples, 4f of the fundamental. Likewise, when not vibrating in sympathy with the fundamental, the dissonant inharmonic intervals create an extremely complex waveform. It is possible the unique harmonic structure produced by double pipes influences the results in favour of extreme consonance and dissonance effect, though the continuity in placement of single pipe metallic instruments indicates towards accurate clustering procedures. With Truku, Maori and Philippine flutes constantly appearing in the similar clusters can be further understood as a relationship shared in the harmonic structure of this set of samples though this could not be absolutely assured without additional evidence to eliminate a clustering preference of simple harmonic vs. complex wave structure. While conclusions of the analysis and results can noticeably point to the assumption that Truku and Maori flutes clearly share a harmonic relationship unique with in this dataset, the inclusion of the Philippine flute within the same cluster may be seen as dubious, this is largely due to the lack of assurance in regards to the playing techniques employed for this instrument. Until such time as a musician familiar with this
86 instrument can confirm the playing techniques employed on this instrument, and therefore the timbre emitted, it would be prudent to question its inclusion within the database.
Contributions and limitations
In the course of investigating existing research pertaining to this study it became evident that no inquiry has dealt with the matter of harmonic analysis in regards to musical migration and cultural timbral preference. If this notion is indeed accurate it would signify this research as a preliminary investigation into an additional area of cultural musical comparisons, that would leave this research as being less of a contribution to Anthropology or Ethnomusicology and more of an investigation into the current state of musical digital processing and the abilities of music retrieval. From this stand point it could be said that this subject is ill-defined and still in it’s infancy as a conclusive science, that being the case, it would take substantial advancements in audio recognition in order to make decisive conclusions on timbral preference which would be absolutely necessary due to the subject of tonal identification being far too subjective for human identification and therefor impossible for any study to make a generalized conclusion on timbral groupings while being judged by an independent human source.
Several areas of concern were apparent immediately in the early analysis stages of this project, the first being the overall quality of the recorded audio samples, this was caused largely by the lack of equipment available and can only be rectified by assess to professional equipment and a standardised acoustic environment. The complications with this became noticeable when analysis of recordings performed in the same environment, certain rooms exhibited sympathetic resonance with particular notes of particular instruments, this was most apparent in samples of overblown and slurred notes which were distorted with reverberation. The second, though somewhat less crucial issue was the overall performance, in ideal situation would be to have an individual musician perform on all instruments, as some of the instruments in this collection are considered sacred, it proved to be difficult to obtain for extended rehearsal and recording. The third issue was complete confidence in the features used for analysis and clustering, this needs an
87 extensive research in order to confirm a solid grouping for each instrument, though confidence in this could not be reached without addressing the initial recording concerns.
Access to instruments, museum collections, musicians and experts was achieved in both countries, though this was somewhat a simpler procedure in New Zealand, could be largely attributed to authority and administration responsible for the archiving and promotion of each respective culture. Superfluously, as an ultimate consequence of the field work required for analysis, the assemblage of audio recordings acts as the solitary contribution of digital archiving to the Aboriginal musical instruments database currently in Taiwan. This lack of digital quality recordings available in this area made it impossible to utilize existing data from both sets needed for comparison, and it is anticipated that the dataset produced by this study will be available for future researchers interested in the topic and a systematic archiving of Taiwanese instruments made possible in the near future.
In issues pertaining to the analysis and recognition of monophonic audio files, it is clear the further research is necessary when dealing with such closely related instruments. As existing research deals with instrument samples taken from independent categories of musical instruments it would be necessary to perform extensive testing on closely related instruments with negligible differences in timbre in order to guarantee confidence in such a closely related dataset as the one used in this research. The emerging field of Music Information Recognition is going to prove to be significant and considerable beneficial in this area, advance in the features responsible for automated timbre identification will allow for the systematic classification of closely related instruments and as a result will strengthen confidence in results drawn from future datasets.
Orientation of future research
As with any scientifically based experiment, it is difficult not to have preconceived concepts of the final outcome of the results. Upon preliminary investigations into this research, I had never been exposed to the tones or timbre produced by either Māori or Taiwan aboriginal flutes, this
88 was despite previously living in both countries prior to initiating research. Upon preparatory for field work in Taiwan in late 2009 I was introduced to a numerous variations of double nose and mouth flutes of the southern tribes, upon returning to New Zealand in Christmas of 2010 I was likewise introduced numerous versions of Māori instruments which was most predominantly various models of the basic Koauau form. It became apparent from these sample sets that neither instruments had an obviously strong correlation in timbre, techniques or otherwise. It wasn’t until returning to Taiwan in 2011 that I was introduced to the headhunting flute of the Truku tribe, I was immediately struck by the similarity in sound to the Koauau, not only in timbre, but also in performance techniques regardless of both instruments employing completely unrelated playing techniques employed to produce sound from the instrument. The fact that the Koauau and Turku flutes constantly appeared in the same clusters gives increased enthusiasm to the features used in the analysis of this research, and to the possibility of computer aided ethnomusicology, although at no stage was there a clear cut distinction between Austronesian and non-Austronesian instruments, it is my belief that without a controlled and concise dataset it would be impossible to state comprehensively timbral relationships in any audio datasets.
The next stage of this research will take these concerns into consideration, and, as a result, will require greater planning into the collection of audio samples, both in field research and in controlled environmental recordings, this is absolutely necessary in order to guarantee the validity of final results and conclusions drawn. Another enhancing factor to this study will be the overall quantity of samples which needs to be extended to include a comprehensive representation of all Austronesian cultures, the logistical implementations of this may not be immediately plausible though the current state of digital archiving in Polynesian ethnomusicology gives reason for optimism. This would allow for the realisation of clustering within an entire linguistic family and highlight defining factors found as well as grouping divisions found within. Though the initial research appears to look promising, the concept of realising a timbral preference within a specific linguistic or genetic family could not be achieved without further research into the audio features relevant in audio signal processing, and an extended authentic collection of audio samples.
89
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