Week 23 North American Native Traditions n  North America like South America has musical traditions that

originate with: n  1. Amerindian ethnic groups n  2. European ethic groups n  3. Black African and Creole groups n  All intermix and none have remained unaffected by the others. n  It is arguable that the mixing of black African and European has

produce in jazz and blues the most universal musical idiom on earth today – it being the basis of western popular music

n  Amerindian is the least known, least understood and least influential. Much of it dying with the loss of land and identity as the white man took over North America

Music in Amerindian Society

n  Music played a significant role in Amerindian culture before contact with Europeans but only in the 20th century has it been studied.

n  Special role in Amerindian. Culture to maintain ethnic identity and provide a focal point for view of past.

n  Intimately concerned with religion – most important element in worship and in rituals such as peer group societies and gambling games.

n  Used to accompany dances, games, calendar rituals and life cycle events.

Pow Wow

Uses of Music

n  Music is used to symbolise and personalise supernatural power. Spirits gave power to humans beings by teaching them songs, and individual with supernatural associations had special musical powers. Shamanism and music go together.

n  Accompaniment to ceremonies, prayer, and aid to religious experience.

n  Music judged less by musical criteria than by how effective in religious functions and how good in providing food, water, healing etc.

n  Each tribe had a large repertoires of songs for all manner of event and function.

n  Example of Night Chant/Rabbit Dance/Devil Dance

Music and Dance

n  Closely related in Amerindian culture. In separable in many cases. This is a particular feature of the culture.

n  Music accompanied dances in specific ceremonies. n  Dances serve to unite members of the community with each

other, with ancestors, and with supernatural beings. n  Each tribe had own dances but typically they are circular and

feature dignified frontal movement. - Steps, hand gestures and spatial designs have symbolic

meaning. - Range of dress specific to dance. Dancers may be musicians

with rattles, or sewn-in sound creators. Musical structures reflect dance structures. Dances stop when all have completed a circuit of the dance ground.

Songs and Poetry

n  Most poetry is sung. Structures closely linked. n  Verbalisations and non-lexical symbols that surround meaningful text is

very common. Some song repertoires have no lexical text at all, and feature only syllable sequences. The second special feature.

n  General lack of instrumental music – so songs fulfill both vocal and instrumental music. The songs are their own accompaniment – hence the large use of non-lexical vocalisations.

Few professional musicians, or specialists – female and male roles usually kept separate. Though they may join as distinct groups within songs.

Some song types have a leader and a call and response form. In some there is scope for word improvisation by the leader but in many repertoires the words or non-lexical texts are sacred, and must be very accurately performed without any change.

Composition, Learning and Rehearsing n  Humans not the originators, but recipients of music imparted to the tribe

by spirits, either through dreams, visitations, or legendary time of tribes origin.

n  Song learning accomplished by rote, and accuracy in some societies is greatly prized. A single lapse may invalidate the ritual and stable traditions may fail.

n  Systematic musicianship is unusual and many societies learn just by rote copying and do so very fast.

n  Learning and appreciating is done by direct experience and verbalising about music theory is rare. However clearly formed musical thought, values, aesthetics and concepts of musicianship are articulated by experienced singers.

n  The ability to distinguish hundreds of similar songs in a narrow repertoire is highly developed. To an outsider they would all sound very much the same.

Tribal Map

Tribes

n  The tribal map of North America is complicated and is now dominated by reservations which may not conform to the original tribal location.

n  There have been attempts to map the distribution of Amerindian musical styles. But there is only reliable information on about a hundred out of many hundred groups. Plains, Eastern Woodlands, South West and California, Great Lakes and Great Basin are the basic divisions.

n  Eastern woodlands – relaxed style, call and response, stomp dance, social gatherings

n  Plains – high piercing style with falsetto. Melodic line starting at top and descending. Percussive accompaniment, powwow.

n  Great Basin – open and relaxed style, brief melodies and small ranges. Ghost dances.

n  Play Great Lakes - percussion (drums, rattles) accompaniment to dance leader’s (shaman) singing.

Cherokee War Dance

Navaho – Enemy Way Song

Example of the Navaho

n  Navaho singers cultivate a tense,nasal vocal style emphasising the upper and middle vocal range and falsetto.

n  Group songs in unblended monophony. n  Variety of melodic contours. n  Navaho perform during curing ceremonies to restore

balance and harmony within person who is ill. n  Songs re-enact episodes from Creation stories and

may include hundreds of songs over several days n  Example of Sioux and Navaho Dances. Harsh nazal

sound, percussion accompaniment and female voices as well as male.

Instruments

n  Great variety of percussion. Especially Idiophones that vibrate when struck, shaken, rubbed or plucked. Log drums and rattles are common. Membraphones are widely used – single-headed frame drum most common.

n  Main melodic are flutes. Almost no chordophones.

n  Others provide tone-colours only, or imitate nature – e.g bull-roarer. Many induce shamanistic trance.

Developments through contact with Europeans n  All traditions have continually changed – adapting historic

repertoires to new social realities. n  Big effect of tourism in 20th century. Selecting and promoting

styles and forms that conform to European tastes and expectations.

n  Peyote music – since 19th century and development of religious cult surrounding chewing of peyote. From south (Mexico and Texas) it spread north and had base in Oklahoma. Native American Church. Sacred visions, all-night worship, prayer and singing. Water drum.

n  Ghost dance religion. Spread in 19th century from plains to other areas. Dancing into enhanced states of mind.

Wounded Knee 1890

Ghost Dance Religion

Eskimo Music

n  Same basic Mongoloid stock that predominates in Eastern and Northern Asia – same as other Amerindian groups.

n  Huge territory very sparsely inhabited. n  Song culture with repertoires for many purposes. Dances,

games, lullabies, stories, healing, hunting, songs of derision an important form of contest and conflict resolution.

n  Most important instrument is the frame drum – often used communally – often struck with a stick.

n  Some songs are very restricted in notes (some only 2) and rhythms (straight 2/4). Others up to 5 note scales and more complex metres. Throat games, breathing, inhalation and exhalation an important part of many songs.

Demonstration throat singing

Inuit Throat Singing

Inuit Song

North American Folk Music

n  Long tradition of folk music of the European populations of North America.

n  Seen as often purer in form due to isolation than European traditions. Thus Cecil Sharpe went to the Appalachians to hear traditional English ballads as they might have been performed in pre-industrial Britain.

n  Leadbelly as example of American Folk.

White Folk Traditions

n  With the development of radio and recording the regional styles cohered around the Country Style, Blue Grass and Country music centred on Nashville, Tennesse.

n  Huge national following after its live broadcasts from the Grand ole’ Opre every Saturday night.

n  Arguable the distinctive style of American popular music – and the correlate of Blues and Jazz.

n  Characterised by ballads of great sadness and personal misery and dance music.

n  While the blues style is at the root of Global popular music today – country music does not export so easily.

summary

n  Many regional styles – e.g. Cajun in Louisianna;Tex Mex along Southern border; Eastern European dance forms in prairie states; etc

n  National popular styles dominated by influence of Blues (including Gospel) and Country – which came together to cross ethnic/cultural divides in the 50s and 60s and provide bases for Global pop style that developed out Rhythm and Blues and then Rock.

Sources

n  New Grove under Americas and Amerindian n  Charles Hamm, Music in the New World

(Norton, 1983) n  Alice Fletcher, Indian Stories and Songs

From North America (Bison Books, 1995) n  Alice Fletcher, Indian Games and Dances

with Native Songs (Bison Books, 1995) n  Elizabeth May, Music of Many Cultures