Somai Serenaders

The Somai Serenaders from Savu-Savu, Fiji, play a traditional string band style unique to the islands. Every village it seems has its own string band, and we were told that the Somai group is one of the very best players.

Their music is played in a very ritualized fashion while sitting on the floor or the ground around a large bowl filled with kava juice. Kava is a local root that has medicinal properties and a mild narcotic effect.

We were immediately impressed by their music and their stories of how their music is inspired by nature like the rhythm of the wind blowing through the palm trees. Apenisa Waqa, the lead guitarist, told us, "Just imagine a couple of coconuts floating on the water, and from that we compose a song."

The group's instrumentation is three guitars and a ukelele with four male voices sung in a soprano range. But Apenisa's improvisational guitar leads are tasteful and full of ease. It's almost as if the entire Fijian lifestyle of taking things slowly is being expressed through his fingers.

They call their style of music sigi drigi (singing and drinking). When asked about what he would like the world to know about their music, Apenisa replied: "We didn't know we were good. We just do this to make the kava taste better." This group has never been recorded before and, in fact, this genre of Fijian string band playing has been isolated to the islands. —Courtesy Calabash Music