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Native American/First Nations Music (Contemporary)

 

Today Native American music continues to evolve, both with performing groups that reinvent and reinterpret music of past–musicians like the Porcupine Singers, members of the Lakota tribe, who create new music in traditional styles–and with artists who blend Native American music with “mainstream” forms like country (watch Keith Secola perform “Indian Car”), rock (watch XIT perform “At Peace”), jazz-fusion (synthacousticpunkarachinavajazz?),

Western classical (watch R. Carlos Nakai and Dawn Avery perform together) and hip hop. Native American storytelling traditions also blend nicely with the narrative lyrics of much “mainstream” rock and folk music; for example, Native American political activist John Trudell (spokesperson of the 1969 Alcatraz Occupation) combines spoken word poetry with contemporary rock. (In class we’re going to listen to his “Rockin’ the Res.”)

Native American/First Nations Music (Northwest Coast)

Native American/First Nations tribes of the Northwest U.S. and Canadian coast, such as the Tshimshian, Makah, Ouiluete, Kwakwaka’wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth, is rhythmically complex and sometimes features multiple voices singing different tones at the same time (“polyphony,”) which makes it unique among /Native American/First Nations forms. It also features more diverse instrumentation than other Native American/First Nations music,
including many kinds of drums, horns, whistles and flutes. Music of the Salish nations, who live immediately to the east of the Northwestern tribes, is a bridge between Northwestern music and the music of the Inuit, who we’ll discuss next.

Northwest Coast instrumentst: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nort/hd_nort.htm

Watch a performance of a snowbird song from the Sḵwxwú7mesh people | Listen to a “paddle song” performed by the Xwamstut dance group of the Sechelt (Salish) nation | Watch a performance of a Sechelt (Salish) honor song

 

Native American/First Nations Music (Eastern Woodlands)

Eastern Woodlands tribes such as the Cherokee, Choctaw, Iroquois, Yuchi, Southeastern Creek, the Delaware and the Penobscot lived/live in Maritime Canada, New England, the U.S. Mid-Atlantic states, the Great Lakes region and as far south as the U.S. Southeast. Their songs are rhythmically complex, changing rhythms abruptly and frequently, and often feature call and response singing, which doesn’t appear in most other Native American music.

[Watch a performance of an Iroquois dance. Note the call and response. | Watch a performance of an Iroquois stomp dance and an Iroquois smoke dance (including an explanation of the dances) | Learn about Choctaw music and dance | Watch an exciting dance performance at a Choctaw pow wow | Listen to some lovely Cherokee songs–three of them performed on mandolin, especially one, the “morning song,” performed by a group called Walela, which we’ll sing in class. (You may take note of the vicious debate in the YouTube comments sections about whether or not these songs are actually Cherokee. Or you may want to avoid it entirely and just enjoy the music.)]

 

Native American/First Nations Music (Plains)

 

[wpspoiler name=”The Arapaho Boys” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler] Music of the Plains tribes, such as the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Dakota, Crow and Comanche, who live/lived in the center of the North American continent, stretching from Texas all the way north into central Canada, features vocals with high, nasal pitches (often sung in falsetto), and songs with “incomplete repetition,” meaning songs divided into two parts, with the second part always repeated before the song starts again at the top.

[Watch a performance by the Arapaho Boys (note the high falsetto) | Watch a a performance of the Arapaho “eagle song” (it starts at 1:55) | Listen to Northern Cheyenne “flag songs,” which are songs many Native American tribes adopted around the turn of the 20th century to honor the flag of the United States | Listen to two Southern Cheyenne songs | Listen to a Blackfoot song]

 

Native American/First Nations Music (Great Basin)

Great Basin tribes, such as the Ute, Shoshoni and Painte, live/lived mainly in the U.S. Southwestern deserts of Utah and Nevada. Their music is relatively simple, with short and straightforward melodies placed within a small vocal range that are often repeated in pairs.

Native American/First Nations Music (Southwest)

Native Americans in the Southwestern United States were making music using instruments such as turtle shell rattles, clay bells and clay flutes (see a Mexican/Aztec example, performed by Philadelphia’s own Brujo de la Mancha) as early as the 7th century. After about the year 1000 Southwestern Native Americans assimilated an increasing number of Mexican and U.S./Mexican border instruments. Nettl divides Southwestern Native American music into two general camps: Pueblo and Athabascan.

Pueblo:

Nettl describes Pueblo songs–music of the Hopi, Zuni and Pueblo tribes like the Taos Pueblo, Santo Domingo Pueblo and San Ildefonso Pueblo–as the most complex of all Native American songs due to their melodic and rhythmic trickiness. Nettl describes Kachina dance songs as the most complicated of the bunch. So guess exactly what
kind of song we’re going to sing in class…. We’ll learn about the Pueblo/Hopi song we’re going to learn, “Mudhead Kachina,” further down in this e-mail.

[Listen to a Hopi “butterfly song” | Watch an informal performance of a song of the Taos Pueblo | Listen to music for a Zuni “Buffalo Dance” (not to be confused with Neneh Cherry’s ’80s hit, “Buffalo Stance”)]

Athabaskan:

Athabaskan tribes such as the Navajo and the Apache sing their fast, percussion-heavy songs with vocals that are notably nasal (sort of like the tribes of the Plains, about whom we’ll learn below) and don’t have any accompanying harmony. Sometimes the Apache use the “Tsii’edo’a’tl” (meaning “wood that sings,”) which is known as “the Apache fiddle.” [Watch Mr. Rogers–yes, that Mr. Rogers–visit Tom O’Horgan–yes, that Tom O’Horgan–and learn about his incredible collection of indigenous peoples’ instruments from around the world. O’Horgan brings out his Apache fiddle at 6:42.]

[Listen to an Apache spirit song | Listen to an Apache sun dance song | Listen to a
Navajo “bluebird song” | Listen to a Navajo/Sioux “healing song” | Listen to a particularly invigorating Navajo “peyote song,” performed by noted Navajo vocalist Louie Gonnie]