Native American Music

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Native American Music

• Americas First Music

2
Listening

• Listen to, describe and analyze Native American
  music.War Dance Song of Southern Plains Indians
• What are your first impressions?
• Does this music sound improvised (made up on the
  spot) or memorized?
• Does this music sound like it has patterns of
  form? Explain.

3
Discussion

• Pretend that you are coming to America for the
  first time from another country. You encounter
  the Indians in a tribal ceremony and hear their
  music for the first time. How do you think you
  would describe the music? The Natives?

4
Map of Regions
5
The Beginnings

• Native Americans trace the ultimate origin of
  their traditional music to the time of creation,
  when specific songs were given to the first
  people by a Creator and by spirit beings in the
  mythic past.
• Sacred narratives describe the origins of
  specific musical instruments, songs, dances, and
  ceremonies.

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Its Purpose

• They judged the worth of their music making by
  its ability to serve specific functions, not by
  aesthetics, as Europeans tend to do.

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Characteristics

• Vocal texture monophonic one voice or a
  number of voices in unison, except for drones.
• Instruments Rattles and sticks, drums with skin
  heads, whistles and flutes
• Forms brief repeated melodic phrases, form
  shaped by ceremony

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Southwest Region
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Southwest Region Music Characteristics

• idiophones and aerophones as mediums to sound
  production beginning date in the seventh century.
  
• Sing in Plains-style nasal vocals with unblended
  monophony
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vWuJAToguCiU
• Describe the music you hear.

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Eastern Woodlands
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Eastern Woodlands

• antiphony (call and response style singing),
  which does not occur in other areas.
• Their territory includes Maritime Canada, New
  England, U.S. Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes and
  Southeast regions.

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Eastern Woodlands

• Songs are rhythmically complex, characterized by
  frequent metric changes and a close relationship
  to ritual dance.
• Flutes and whistles are solo instruments, and a
  wide variety of drums, rattles and striking
  sticks are played.

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Plains

• Plains-area music is nasal, with high pitches and
  frequent falsettos, with a terraced descent (a
  step-by-step descent down an octave) in an
  unblended monophony

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Plains

• Large double-sided skin drums are characteristic
  of the Plains tribes, and solo end-blown flutes
  (flageolet) are also common.

15
Great Basin

• Music of the Great Basin is simple, discreet and
  ornate, characterized by short melodies with a
  range smaller than an octave, moderately-blended
  monophony, relaxed and open vocals

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Northwest Coast

• Open vocals with monophony are common in the
  Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, though
  polyphony also occurs (this the only area of
  North America with native polyphony).

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Arctic

• The Inuit of Alaska, Northwest Territories, Yukon
  Territory, Nunavut and Greenland are well-known
  for their throat-singing, an unusual method of
  vocalizing found only in a few cultures
  worldwide.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vqnGM0BlA95I

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Describe what you hear

• Listen to the following music. Describe the
• Vocals
• Rhythms
• The structure

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Describe what you hear part 2

• Listen to and see the following clip. Simply
  describe what you hear and see.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vVRCpLtlZ8Hcfeature
  related

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Compare and Contrast

• In one paragraph, compare and contrast the
  contemporary Native American Music with
  traditional Native American music.
• Song 1
• Song 2
• Contemporary Native American Music How would
  you describe it?
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnp0f3YbCymw