NZ FOLKSONG * Maori Songs

February 2012 - Welcome back to all you rangatahi for a new year of learning and growth: this webpage gets an extra 300 visits each day when you fullas get busy on your school computers.

I'm sorry I haven't added much new material for you recently. I've just turned 70, and my eyes are starting to get fuzzy when I spend too long at this computer screen. But I am working on webpages for Ka Pioioi and on a couple of tui-tuia songs, Kiko and Whakarongo ake au.

Song-pages with most visitors

Traditional Songs of the Maori. McLean & Orbell. Academic study of old chants. Auckland University Press 2004 - currently out of print, ask at a public library.

Nga Moteatea, Sir Apirana Ngata
The source book of these old chants, recently reprinted, with CDs.

Ko Nga Moteatea, ancient chants collected and published by Sir George Grey in 1855, and now readable on-line. It is the source of Ngata's book.

CD recording hints
Alan Armstrong has some good advice for those recording a Maori concert CD.

Nereana Whanau Youtube channel - Tunes, lyrics and chords of 30+ waiata
TKI - Waiata in Engl-language schools - Words, tunes, tchg notes.
Te Ao Hou, the online re-issue of the 1950s-70s Maori magazine Waiata
St. Joseph's MGC: school songs
Ngati Ranginui: Waiata
Ministry of Education, Moteatea MP3s
Tarrangower School: Ruapehu
Wellington Kapahaka: Waiata
Traditional Polynesian songs: Artem Kozmin

Kia ora koutou

Please forgive me for any errors here. If you can send me any corrections or additions to be added here, I would be most grateful.

My hobby has been learning about songs of the rural white New Zealand way of life. I started this NZ Folk Song website to make information about these Pakeha songs available to others.

But people kept e-mailing me to ask for information about Māori songs. So I started this page to help my visitors. And it has grown to become my most visited page by far, with more than 12,000 visitors a month.

To find out about different versions of old Maori songs, I search the NZ National Library's online database.

And I'm finding a wealth of information about waiata in all twenty years of copies of Te Ao Hou that are online.

The most useful printed resource I have for words and translations is Waiata Maori by the late Toby Rikihana. This is a compilation of about 300 waiata for primary and secondary school teachers of te Reo Māori. If you are in NZ, you can hunt for it at your local library or Kohange Reo. Here is how you can buy it.

I also have these Maori songbooks too. If you would like me to hunt through them for you, e-mail me.

John Archer
Ngati Tumatauenga
Waiouru

Song-pages with most visitors

Song writers

Singers

You can help NZ Folksong

Maori Dictionaries On-line

Songbooks

Maori song reference material

Other Maori Song sites

Editor's note

Visitors this Month

Songs in Maori

Songs in English (and Korean)

Te Pataka Waiata

Songs for pre-schoolers