G'day michaelr,

-- Australian-Germanic tunes?

Well, a lot of the good musicians out here, particularly in the dance music area of the 19th century, were of what we loosely describe as "Germanic" origin. They were mostly religous or economic refugees from the upheavals of Europe, particularly Bismarck's conquest of the independent German city-states, Duchies and Principalities (AKA: "The Unification of Germany").

Most of these "Germans" were from fringe minority groups - Moravians, Silesians, &c and, apart from the Gold Rush period, they came in an 1830s wave to South Australia - an 1860s influx that trekked up the Murray River (because there earlier relatives had already grabbed the good land in South Australia) and an 1880s lot who settled up north in sunny Queensland.

Even though they had been refugees from the sort of Germans who started the 1st & 2nd World Wars, they were usually interned during the Wars ... and have long suppressed their own traditions, but now they are starting to reclaim them. Folklorists, such as Mark Schuster and Maria Schuster-Zann from Toowoomba, Queensland, have started collecting in the older communities - and other players have been prepared to show their Germanic sides to folklorists - so there is a growing body of identifiable, distinctive "Germanic" music and dance ... much of it forgotten or suppressed back in post-war Germany.

(Separately, there is another body of dance and music that arrived with the post-war migrant workers, particularly those that came to build the Snowy Mts Hydro-Scheme from 1949-1960s. This is being pursued by other folklorists ... and also contains elements lost back in modern Germany! I'm more interested in the 19th century traditions, as they mesh with my interest areas in Australian history.)

BTW: I'm about to organise a sort of revived "German Band" of the style common in Australia in the later part of the 19th century - Accordions and/or Concertinas / Cornets / Tenor Horn / Flute / wooden Clarinet. We'll be doing a gig for a fundraiser to build a 'fire shed' for a western Sydney Rural Fire Service (volunteer bush fire fighters) in June.

Regards,

Bob Bolton