ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses remote Aboriginal Australia, by examining the part music and song making plays in community development. It explores how traditional music and contemporary practices worked in tandem to help reinvigorate Aboriginal communities. The chapter focuses on a number of ethnographically based "evaluation" studies of Aboriginal community-controlled projects that seek to find solutions to a range of social challenges. It explains the methodology adopted also drew heavily upon direct participation in music production. In particular it involved learning language, story and song; listening, at times playing, singing and participating in performance. The chapter argues that music, particularly where it draws on people's history and traditions can play a critical part in attempts to respond to the challenges facing Aboriginal communities. As many have observed, singing, dancing, painting and performing ceremony has long been used to help maintain and build Aboriginal people's connection to country and to each other.
