A sound for life and death
From the Casketeers keeps a family tradition alive with a special guitar.
Music brings us together. It unites us in our happiness and most definitely in our sadness. But the main thing for us as a family is that music helps us relax and unwind, especially in the line of work we do.
My wife, Kaiora, and our six sons sit around on Monday nights and have a waiata together on our own instruments, and that’s important for our family unit.
The guitar is the accompaniment to the song or the waiata that you sing and it accompanies the spirit in which you sing it in.
The guitar I have is the instrument for home and work. It’s seen a lot of death and it’s also seen a lot of life, which is why this guitar is significant to me and my family.
We recently had our sixth son, my namesake, and so the first thing that we took to the hospital was the guitar. It was important for us to instil that sound of the waiata in our new baby.
We sang to him when he was in mummy’s tummy, and we also sang to him when he was born. It’s a family tradition I started.
This guitar was a gift from my sister, Moana. She gave it to me 15 years ago. At the time, she had no money and she was struggling.
She got it for me because I always wanted to own a nice guitar We always had a couple of guitars here and there, but they were not as beautiful as this one.
When I was a young boy, growing up in Pawarenga in Northland, my grandfather played the guitar to us. We always wanted to copy him. We had no power and Pop would play the guitar to help us to go sleep.
I do the same thing with my children today. I feel like I’m watching how I was brought up
when I see my own kids. I learned very early the three-chord rule, which a lot of Ma¯ ori know. You can find a song and can generally play it knowing the chords G, C and D.
The guitar comes to funerals and helps farewell the many loved ones we say goodbye to. It’s a unifying instrument that brings people together.
When it’s used in kapa haka, it’s the sound we all wait for that gives us our cue, gives us our right note and keeps us in tune. That’s the same at a funeral, the guitar sets the tone. We start singing as soon as we hear the first strum.
It normally gets a hammering during the summer. It has a lot of wear and tear, which is a good thing.
This is our beach time and it always comes along with us. When we’re packing the car we always count our six sons then the guitar. That’s important to us. And when we’re at the beach, I’m always asking the wha¯ nau who use it to sing or play to put an umbrella over it.
We do take it for granted. We can sing without the guitar but you can’t guarantee that everyone will be singing in tune. Every nine months I take it to the music shop to get a polish, and I’ll change the strings every six months.
There are many other families that have a guitar as well, and if they’re reading this story, they will understand why it’s so important to us.