Maori music records and analyses ancient Maori musical tradition and knowledge, and explores the impact of European music on this tradition. Mervyn McLean draws on diverse written and oral sources gathered over more than 30 years of scholarship and field work that yielded some 1300 recorded songs, hundreds of pages of interviews with singers, and numerous eye-witness accounts. The work is illustrated throughout with photos and music examples.

This ground-breaking book examines the multifaceted dynamics between copyright law and music borrowing within a rich diversity of music genres from across the world. It evaluates how copyright laws under different generic conventions may influence, or are influenced by, time-honoured creative borrowing practices. Leading experts from around the world scrutinise a carefully selected range of musical genres, including pop, hip-hop, jazz, blues, electronic and dance music, as well as a diversity of region-specific genres, such as Jamaican music, River Plate Tango, Irish folk music, Hungarian folk music, Flamenco, Indian traditional music, Australian indigenous music, Maori music and many others. This genre-conscious analysis builds on a theoretical section in which musicologists and lawyers offer their insights into fundamental issues concerning music genre categorisation, the typology of music borrowing and copyright law's ontological struggle with musical borrowing in theory and practice. The chapters are threaded together by a central theme, ie, that the cumulative nature of music creativity is the result of collective bargaining processes among many 'musicking' parties that have socially constructed creative music authorship under a rich mix of generic conventions.

This classic text on Maori culture collects indigenous New Zealand songs recorded over a period of 40 years by a respected Maori leader and distinguished scholar. The essence of Maori culture and its musical tradition is exhibited in the original song texts, translations, audio CDs, and notes from contemporary scholars featured in this new edition. This rare cultural treasure makes accessible a fleeting moment in Maori history when traditional practices and limited experience with the outside world allowed indigenous songs and customs to flourish.

Birgit Abels is a cultural musicologist with a primary specialization in the music of the Pacific and Southeast Asian islands. --

Sir Timoti Karetu is one of the country's chief exponents of te reo Maori &– from leading the Maori Language Commission to producing a new generation of language experts through his teaching at Te Panekiretanga o te Reo Maori. He is also an unrivalled creator of waiata and haka, composing songs and judging at Te Matatini and other events.In this book, Sir Timoti shares his extensive experience in the artforms of haka and waiata &– from Maori songs of the two world wars to the rise of kapa haka competitions, from love songs to action songs, from Sir Apirana Ngata to Te Puea Herangi, and from Te Matatini to contemporary hui on marae. Throughout the book, he draws on exemplars of Maori song and haka, explaining form and meanings, maintaining his stance that Lyric is Paramount!Written in exemplary te reo Maori, Matamua ko te Kupu! will become a taonga of Maori knowledge and language.