This short film by year 5 & 6 students Dinith, Esther, and Oliver from Girton Grammar School, explores the use of Chinese musical instruments using the collection held at the Golden Dragon Museum, Bendigo.
Further Information
TRANSCRIPT
-Welcome, everyone.
NARRATOR 1: The two-string mandolin. The two-string mandolin is like a banjo, but with two strings and a stick up. At this tuning end, the stick goes across. It was from the 1880s.
NARRATOR 2: The drum [INAUDIBLE]. The drum [INAUDIBLE] is used for a drum to stand out at the back as someone at the back is playing the drums, and a long handle at the front, with someone pulling it from the 1800s. The shell horn is basically a shell, and you blow one side of the horn, and out the other side comes a sound. It is in different colors from the 1880s.
-Clashing of the gong was to ward off bad spirits in the Easter festival.
NARRATOR 1: The musician's hat. The musician's hat was warn by the musician, and has two red ribbons, and a little bump for the head from the 1800s.
NARRATOR 2: The large pair of cymbals were used in the Easter festival, sometimes behind the drummer's cut from the 1800s.
-In Bendigo, the citizens decided to have the Bendigo Easter festival. It first started in 1869, but really wasn't formal until 1871, where it had an organizing committee and it was run annually. Here, you can see some instruments that were brought in for the Easter festival by the Chinese. During this festivity, they would play their drums, their cymbals, and gongs and make lots of beautiful music to the performing lines of dragons.
NARRATOR 1: What was it like in the Easter festival? And what sort of instruments did they use?
-It was very much similar to what it is today. But the instruments that I had was the drums, the cymbals, and the gongs.
NARRATOR 3: Thanks for watching everyone.