How did Maaori of yesteryears work together to create and perform music with taonga puuoro – traditional Maaori instruments?

It is this question that lies at the heart of the music created by Ngaati Tumutumu musician Rob Thorne who searches for an answer by applying modern looping technology to taonga puuoro.

Taonga puuoro musician Rob Thorne will join singer-songwriter Charlotte Yates and multi-instrumentalist Gil Eva Craig for a special concert at the Kauaeranga Valley Community Hall this Friday. Photo: Rob Thorne Toi Puuoro/Facebook

You can experience for yourself the rich and textured soundscapes the 46-year-old musician creates when he plays the Kauaeranga Valley Community Hall this Friday, starting at 7.30pm.

Presented by Arts on Tour NZ, the gig is part of a special seven-show North Island tour which also features singer-songwriter Charlotte Yates and multi-instrumentalist Gil Eva Craig.

'I've been looking forward to getting out on the road and doing this tour, it's been a long time coming,” says Rob. 'It is always nice to get out on the road doing what I love and what I want to do, which is make music.”

Raised in the Hokianga and now based in Palmerston North, Rob has made music for more than 25 years.

During this time he's collaborated both academically and musically with master musician Richard Nunns QSM, Phil Dadson, Dudley Benson and Ariana Tikao.

His work with taonga puuoro has led to an MA in Social Anthropology and he's researched, taught and demonstrated at museums and marae throughout the country.

Rob says by using loop pedals and taonga together it allows him to create music he might not have been able to create on his own had he lived 200 years ago.

'What it allows me to do is imagine how we may have worked as ensembles,” he explains. 'There is not a lot of historical evidence that Maaori did ensembles, but there's a few accounts which have been written down.

'There's one written account of people playing paakuru together, which is rhythmic instrument, and it spoke about how beautiful it was to hear a large number of people playing paakuru together in a beautifully timed way.

'The same account also referenced poi and piu piu and how everyone was determined to swing their piu piu in time to the paakuru, same with the poi.”

Rob's loop pedal alongside two of his taonga puuoro. Photo: Rob Thorne Toi Puuoro/Facebook

Rob's first taonga was a kooauau (flute) which was given to him at the age of 19. He says from that moment he was instantly hooked: 'I got the buzz and I haven't been able to put them down.”

At the beginning it was the DIY aspect of the taonga which intrigued him and since then he's learned to create instruments from stone, bone, shell and wood.

Rob says there was a simplicity that could easily be denied by the complexity of tradition.

'There's the beautiful carvings and the actual construction of the instrument,” he elaborates. 'It always struck me the inventiveness and innovation of Maori, we could take a bit of number eight wire and whip something up.”

On top of this, there was a perception that taonga puuoro are supposedly 'simple instruments”, which he discovered was far from the truth.

'When I first started I found them very difficult to play, so the challenge was a great thing and it still exist today.

'The way that the instruments are limited melodically and harmonically allows me only so much to room to work so that can be a difficulty.

'There's also a real living aspect to the instrument and they can throw you like a horse, you'll be on stage and then one of the instrument won't play when it always plays.”

Rob performing with a puutoorino (flute). Photo: Rob Thorne Toi Puuoro/Facebook

For this Friday's show Rob says he will work with about seven instruments that his Ngaati Tumutumu tuupuna (ancestors) would have worked with back in the day.

He will perform his 2014 album Whaaia Te Maaramatanga which features the puutoorino (flute) and porotiti (spinning disc) and the puutaatara (conch shell trumpet).

'I will start and I won't stop, I'll use my loop pedal and put down a few layers and it'll be a slow, growing musical progress.

'It's definitely a soundscape, the instrument create aural texture and overall it comes out very ambient and gentle, there's an overwhelming relaxing kind of thing to it.

'I like to encourage my audiences to close their eyes, kick back and I'll see them at the end.”

A Special Concert with Rob Thorne, Charlotte Yates and Gil Eva Craig is on at Kauaeranga Hall this Friday, June 17, at 7pm.

Tickets cost $18 pre-booked or $20 on the door. To pre-book tickets txt 021-912-993 or email: [email protected] Tickets also available from Lotus Realm, 714 Pollen St, Thames.

For more information and to watch an excerpt from Rob's 2014 album ‘Whaaia Te Maaramatanga' visit his website at: www.robthorne.co.nz

Photo: Rob Thorne Toi Puuoro/Facebook