PowerPoint by Myra Lewinter Malamut
Georgian Court University
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 The Early Years: Historical and Cultural
Perspective
 Scholars believe that human experience has always included music


Music’s sound and its place in society have differed widely from one time and one culture to another
Even today, people differentiate between “music” and “noise”
 Often disagreeing on which is music and which is noise
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music 2

 Long before the first white settlers or black slaves touched the North American shores the people living here were making music of their own

Today’s descendants of the early
Native Americans retain a strong reverence for and a sense of oneness with nature

Expressed within music as in all their arts, traditional Native
American music and art all had spiritual and utilitarian significance
Native American Frame Drum
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 The Western separation of sacred and secular concepts has little meaning among Native Americans

Religion, art, music, poetry are the inseparable threads —the warp and woof —of life and culture
 Before the twentieth century Native
American cultural expression remained consistent
Indian Scout , painted by
Alfred Jacob Miller, 1810-1874
 During the last century, acculturation brought about significant changes in
Indian music
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
4

 During the sixteenth century, Europeans began to arrive and settle in North America in large numbers
 Bringing musical customs with them
 Early seventeenth century: Pilgrims and Puritans in New
England were Protestants


Protests against the Roman Catholic Church included some concerning the performance of religious music
Puritan Society included sophisticated men and women of keen wit and high intellect

Including Anne Bradstreet (16121672), the New World’s first poet
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 Early New Englanders had little use for art for art’s sake
 But their daily experience was rich in artistic expression

Example: Graveyards by houses of worship contained elaborately carved and decorated headstones

Landscape painting held little attraction
 But portrait painting preserved a likeness and so was valued
Gravestone in a colonial churchyard
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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
Even before the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock in 1620,
Africans were being forcibly brought to, and made to work in the New World
 Forbidden to practice their familiar African religious rituals and to sing songs, dance, and play musical instruments in their accustomed ways
 Slaves attempted to adapt traditional African musical expression to worship the white people’s Christian god
 Slaves integrated music and faith into their daily lives
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 Eighteenth-century Americans of European descent reflected a strong European influence
 European artists had adopted the classical ideals of ancient Greek sculptors and architects
 Perfection of form, balanced designs, relatively restrained emotional expression

From 1750 to 1820, artists applied these characteristics to their art: The Age of Classicism
 In music, the eighteenth century is known as the Classical Period
 This was the era of the American Revolution and the Declaration of
Independence
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 American artists had more training and sophistication than the folk artists of the settlers’ period
 But their finest works retained an innocence, honesty, and decorative sense

Distinguishing them from the more elegant European works of the era
 John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) —America’s greatest colonial artist
 Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1827) —The leading artist in
Philadelphia for many years
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 The traditions and practices of all the early inhabitants all affected
American music
 Those native to the land; early European arrivals; the slaves
 Early music heard in the separated inhabited regions of the continent reflected highly disparate values and sounds, yet had items in common
 More likely to be performed by amateurs in intimate settings (not the concert hall), and often with spiritual connotation
 The distinctions we draw between sacred and secular music —and between high and low art--had little meaning in the early American experience
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 Music occurred in association with other activities
 Dance, religious ritual, prayer, work, recreation
 Songs possess strong powers to accomplish a given end, such as
 Success in fishing


Healing
Winning a bride
 Songs are not thought of as composed
 They are believed to be received in a dream or vision

A song’s owner may sell the song or grant someone else the right to sing it, or pass on the song in a will
 Songs are preserved by oral tradition through generations
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 Usually sung by a solo voice or by men and women singing in unison = Singing the same notes at the same time

There is no harmony in the western sense, but there may be…
 Call-and-response = solo voice alternating with a group
 Melodic phrases start on a higher pitch and then descend, similar to the spoken phrase
 A song often consists of many repetitions of one or more phrases or partial phrases
 Songs may be in a native language, or recently, in English
 Some texts are vocables = neutral syllables ( hey , neh, yeh )
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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Yeibichai Chant Song
Listening guide page 27
(excerpt)
On the ninth (last) night of the
Night Way ceremony,
Yeibichai appears accompanied by masked dancers shaking their guard rattles, and by the unearthly call of the gods. The falsetto tones heard here are particularly characteristic of this and of some other
Native American songs
Form : Strophic
Melody : Repeated high-pitched tones interspersed with even higher cries of indeterminate pitch, producing a rather florid melodic line featuring dramatic upward leaps
Rhythm : Steady pulse marked by rattle shakes
Text : Vocables punctuated with the distinctive call of the Yei
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
13

Sioux Grass Dance
Plains Indians
Listening guide page 27
Usually referred to today as a grass dance, because of the grass braids the dancers wear at their waists, this is the stirring war dance music heard, or imitated, in countless western movies
Hear the strong pulsations, and the falsetto singing
Form : Strophic, phrase introduced with leader’s call
Melody : Phrases begin high pitched, then descend
Accompaniment: Drums, rattles, observers’ yells
Manner of performance : Two teams of costumed dancers carrying weapons face each other, imitating battle
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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 Little music is performed by instruments alone

Sound instruments often support or “hold up” a song
 Navajo flutes: The main melody-playing instrument
 Traditionally used as a courting instrument to persuade a young woman to marry the player
 Percussion instruments are widespread
 Especially rattles, rasps, drums


A rasp is made from a long stick of wood into which notches have been carved, rubbed with another stick or piece of bone to make a rasping sound
Drums are profuse in variety
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
15

 Among the earliest changes to Native American Indian music was the development of pan-Indian songs
 Native American peoples from many tribes, speaking various languages, met at powwows for dancing, singing, ceremonies
 Modern powwows are common on reservations and in cities

Vocables are used to sing powwow songs; vocables…

Unite the people as Native Americans and as members of a particular tribe


Authenticate ceremonies
Keep people in balance with nature
 Often there are visitors from other cultures
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
16

 Recent interest in Native American Indian culture has produced much research of live and recorded traditional and new Native
American music
 Carlos Nakai (b. 1946)

Collaborates with musicians in many fields, including the concert hall, electronic techniques, Navajo flute, more
 Louis Ballard: C omposer, music educator, journalist of Cherokee, Quapaw, Scottish,
French, English descent
R. Carlos Nakai
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
17

 Slide 3: Native American frame drum
© C Squared Studios/Getty Images
 Slide 4: Indian Scout , painted by Alfred
Jacob Miller, © Corel
 Slide 6: Gravestone in a colonial churchyard, © Corbis

Slide 17: R. Carlos Nakai, © Getty Images
Part 1: Music in Early North America
Chapter 1: North American Indian Music
© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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