Music of Tonga

Music of Tonga refers to music derived from the island Tonga in the islands of Polynesia. Music of Tonga today generally falls under the category of traditional music that has withstood the test of time, or into one of the two opposing genres of religious and secular music. Tongan music can be either very emotional and somewhat modern with instrumental makeup including modern brass instruments, or conversely can be very primitive and consist of only drums and voices. In this way, Tongan music is very diverse despite the fact that it is contained to a fairly small island, which means that the different cultures and styles co-exist on the small land mass together without blending.

History

Tonga was discovered by European explorers in 1616. Early visitors, such as Captain Cook in the 1770s, and William Mariner in the 19th century, describe traditional dance performances featuring singing and drumming.

The first successful missionaries, English Methodists, arrived in 1822. By 1830, most of the population were nominally Christian. Western church music and Western classical and popular music would then start to mingle with the pure Tongan music, resulting in the often hybrid music of contemporary Tonga. Now popular guitar styles are used throughout Tonga too.