Music of Tonga - Secular Music

Secular Music

Secular music is composed in a gamut of styles, ranging from the semi-traditional to the aggressively "pop" influenced by overseas styles. The usual instruments are voice, guitar, and sometimes the players from the church brass band.

Hiva kakala (fragrant songs, meaning love poems) are an important part of the semi-traditional group. Many of the ones still popular nowadays were made by queen Sālote in the 1950s and are the favourite tunes for the tauʻolunga dances. Another important part in this group are the more formal songs, slanted towards odes to the chiefs and the royal family. They are the ideal choice for dances like the māʻuluʻulu or the lakalaka, Tonga's national dance form.

Mixed dancing, or hulohula as practiced at parties and clubs in the Western world, is still comparatively rare. It is not a feature of village life, and can be found only in the cities, such as Nukuʻalofa.

Most village musicians display their talents only in church, or at the koniseti. The koniseti or concert is a display of dance and song, usually done as a fundraiser for some worthy cause, such as a sports team or a local congregation. The musicians consist usually of singers, guitar players, and possibly a church brass band. The music is melodic and minor key; it serves as background to the dancers. Sometimes villagers will rehearse a koniseti for months and then tour neighboring villages or even islands. The size of the receipts is commensurate with the quality of the show, and there is great incentive to excel. At other times the koniseti may be performed only once, for a special occasion.

Music is often heard in Tongan towns and villages, but it is usually music from Radio Tonga. Radio Tonga is a state-run radio station; it starts broadcasting early in the morning and ends late at night. It can be heard even in the smallest villages on the remotest islands, blasting from the omnipresent tepis or combination radio/tape cassette players (usually battery powered). One weary Western visitor was heard to complain, in 1980, "You can't get away from Radio Tonga".

Radio Tonga plays music from local Tongan musical groups, Fijian and Samoan bands, Hawaiʻian music, etc. It also broadcasts church services and choir competitions, so it disseminates church music as well as popular music. The Tongan groups usually feature strong vocals, solo or choral, haunting minor key harmonies, and guitar backup. To the unsophisticated Western ear, it savors of American country music.

Western pop is also popular among a younger audience, though disapproved by elders and churches. It can bought as CD or tape, seen on DVD or videotape, picked up on short-wave radio, viewed in movie theatres, or even watched on the one TV station, broadcasting from the capital city of Nukuʻalofa. However, government censors significantly limit what can be imported, or played.

Local custom also plays a part. It is forbidden to mention sexual topics in front of men and women who have a brother-sister relationship. This applies not only to brothers and sisters by Western reckoning, but also to cousins. Hence sexual references are taboo in most public situations where both men and women are present.

Contemporary Tongan pop music has reached outside Tonga, but only to the Tongan diaspora in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

No Tongan artists have achieved a cross-over hit. However, the Jets, an R&B/pop octet of the mid-1980s, had a string of hits on the American charts. The Minneapolis-based act consists of eight brothers and sisters whose mother and father had emigrated to the U.S. from Tonga.