Welcome to our latest project! Here we hope to bring you informative, interesting and often obscure facets of American music history using text, photos, video and web links. Our current focus is to seek out factual research pertaining to the earliest known origins of America's music, leading up to and including the old-time string band, jug band, black minstrel, blues, mountain, folk and bluegrass musical heritage. We will present the views and personal knowledge of scholars, artists and other major contributors to the American arts.
Frances LaFleche
Cheyenne Dancing - 1908
Native American
Wooden Flute Player
Arapaho Drummer - 1889
Iroquois Nation
Dance Rattle
ca. 1860s
Snapping Turtle Shell
w/ Deer Tibia handle and
Corn Kernels for rattling.
Apache Fiddle & Bow
Crow Indian Boys
Marching
Band -
1910
In our first installment, we begin with the earliest known American music -- the culture of the Native American Indian. Little or nothing at all is taught in our educational systems about Native Americans, yet they were major contributors to society and the development of the Americas; including several musical techniques still used today. The gradual evolution from Native American Indian music culture to Appalachian mountain music (vocal techniques, instruments, events we are familiar with today, etc) may surprise you.
Native Americans & Bluegrass Music:
A Traditional Connection
Native Americans trace the ultimate origin of their traditional music to the time of Creation, music given to the first people by spirit beings in their past. Sacred stories describe the origins of specific musical instruments, songs, dances and ceremonies. Gifted individuals may have experienced dreams or visions in which spirit beings teach them new songs, dances and rituals. Many Indian communities learn new songs from their neighbors, and have a long history of adopting musical practices from outsiders. Yet in every case, the music is said to be a gift that comes from beyond the individual or community. Each community’s own musical concepts and values developed over time through complex cultural processes. As diverse as the Native American Indian population is, their musical concepts and values generally have a similarity about them. Much like the peoples of Appalachia, Native Americans have primarily preserved their stories and music through oral tradition throughout the centuries. American Indian songs and rituals are predicated largely upon the unique social values so deeply embedded in native cultures.
The formal study of American Indian music began in the late 1800s with the advent of 'ethnomusicology'. The first study was a book on Native American music published in 1882 by German ethnomusicologist Theodore Baker. Some of the most important literature on indigenous music history has been published by writers who were themselves American Indians. Francis LaFlesche (of mixed Omaha, Ponca and French ancestry) was the first North American Indian to become an anthropologist. He was the author or coauthor of several early 20th-century publications on indigenous music. LaFleche's works continue to be relevant over 100 years later.
The roles of musicians, dancers and other participants in a Native American performance are often complex and the subtle gestures may not be apparent to an outsider. Performances may be specific to one community or may involve different tribes and nations. Lead singers and dancers may be political as well as spiritual leaders. Performers taking part in collective ceremonies do not expect to receive applause or any verbal response from the audience. Their only role is to serve the community.
Native men and women often have complementary musical roles. Among native Andeans, men play instruments while the women sing. In the Southeastern United States, men sing while women shake leg rattles. Some South American Indians hold separate events for men and women.
Native Americans were likely the first to control property rights to music. They considered songs to be property and developed formal systems of musical ownership, inheritance and performance rights. A more advanced modern version of this practice is still in use today through BMI, ASCAP and other performance rights organizations worldwide.
On the northwest coast of North America, the right to perform ancestral songs and dances is an inherited privilege although the owner of a song can give it away. Indians of northwestern Mexico believe that certain songs belong to the shaman who received them in a dream. However, after his death those songs enter the community’s collective repertory; essentially their own version of what is now known in the music business as 'Public Domain'.
Other communities believe that specific pieces of music belong to the entire community and should not be performed by outsiders without specific permissions. Music has intrinsic value to individuals, ensembles and communities, and performance rights are granted according to rules established by each individual group.
Traditional music plays an important role in perpetuating Native American languages, some of which are no longer spoken in daily life. Lyrics may use the traditional language of any given tribe, although words may be altered by adding or deleting syllables in order to accommodate the music. Song text usually refers to local flora & fauna, the landscape, natural resources, subjects pertaining to their particular community, or even healing/curing songs (offered only by a Shaman or Medicine Doctor).
Native American music consists of vocal style, melody, rhythm, phrase structure and typical instruments. Instruments consisted mainly of wind (wooden whistles & flutes) and percussion (rattles & various sized drums). Drums were primarily of three types: Hand Drum (a small one or two-headed drum, similar to a Bongo); War Drum (a large drum used by multiple players simultaneously); and a Water Drum (keg-like in appearance using water to change pitch). Also used widely were wooden logs of different lengths (to produce different tones) and beaten with sticks, primarily used in ceremonial dances.
Each region in the Americas uses characteristic musical instruments, often instrumentally (without singing). Many North American Indian tribes emphasize their singing using percussive instruments, rather than play purely instrumental music. The only known Native American string instrument players were some tribes in Mexico (elementary violins with one or two strings and a small curved bow), and the Apaches of the American Plains and Southwest. The Apache developed a similar, somewhat modified violin to those first used by Mexican Indians (see photo to the lower left).
Vocal styles may best be described as 'tense' (requiring greater muscular effort) or 'relaxed', depending upon the use of the throat, tongue, mouth and breath. Higher notes for a particular voice often sound more tense than notes in the middle of a singer’s vocal range. The sound may be nasal or not (the Native American's version of the "high lonesome sound" of bluegrass). Men especially may use a falsetto voice to reach a higher sound than is possible using their natural voice.
Vibrato is a very common vocal tool among Indian vocalists; in the singing of songs, crying out to one another on the trail, or in a 'War Cry'. Generally vibrato is a rapid, slight variation in pitch that may be ornamental and is often part of the aesthetic of musical performance. Bluegrass fans may be familiar with Peter Rowan's use of this sound. Peter is one of few non-Native Americans with the ability to use this form of vibrato with such authenticity.
Six musical style regions are known to exist in Native North America: Eastern Woodlands (incl. Northeast and Southeast Indians), Plains, Great Basin, Southwest, Northwest Coast and Arctic. The most distinctive element of Eastern Woodlands music style is the use of call and response in dance songs. The leader sings a short melody as a solo and is answered by the dancers in unison. Bluegrass music fans may be familiar with this tool as Ralph Stanley, for example, often uses the 'call and response' technique in Gospel songs. Ralph refers to it as "lining out" the song.
From the 1500s through the 1700s, Native Americans adapted many European musical instruments and genres through musical interaction with explorers and new settlers. These European colonists began teaching American Indians to read, perform and compose European music, and to build European instruments. The colonists also transported Africans to the Western Hemisphere, and the Africans in turn influenced American Indians. A rather unfortunate consequence of contact with these outsiders was that millions of natives died from European epidemics, enslavement, warfare and massacre. In some cases entire Native American cultures became extinct.
Europeans and Native Americans in Central Mexico, the Andes and other parts of Latin America eventually began to intermarry. This helped develop new 'mestizo' cultures. Mestizo peoples created their own musical styles based on blends of European and native instruments and musical styles. Mestizos gradually turned toward different musical instruments from those of the indigenous peoples, and they often specialized in their own varieties of early mandolins and guitars. In Central Mexico, mestizos further distinguished their unique music through the use of improvisation and syncopation -- something never before heard in the native styles of that area.
Native Americans had begun playing European fiddle music by the 1800s. A similar history unfolded among Indian marching bands. They began performing in the mid-1800s for parades, fairs and exhibitions, attracting both native and non-native audiences. In the latter 1800s many native communities began to develop their own hymns, fiddle traditions and even marching bands. American Indians began publishing their own hymnals for use in Christian worship during the first half of the 19th century.
Indigenous peoples (Native American Indians in this case) define authenticity according to their own musical concepts and values, which often differ from the personal views of outsiders. Some non-Indians think that musical instruments constructed from synthetic materials are therefore inferior to instruments made from natural materials. However, Native American musicians define authenticity in more simple terms -- through construction methods, sound quality and use, rather than outward appearances.
On the other hand, non-Indians sometimes devalue certain native performances or newer musical styles such as hymns or fiddle music. Yet for Native Americans these performance styles and musical contexts offer opportunities to reaffirm their core cultural values and identity, and to maintain connections to their past. Music and tradition in Native Indian communities are preserved through a continuous creative process and play an invaluable role in the ongoing reproduction of their respective cultures.
Common among American Indians is the belief that they can understand people better if they know their music, and appreciate the music better if they understand the people themselves.
A rather significant innovation took place in Native American culture during the 1900s -- the development of the 'pow-wow'. It is a collective celebration involving native music and dance performed throughout North America. Pow-wows generally promote and preserve indigenous culture, spirituality and social unity. Most pow-wows are open to the public and offer an excellent opportunity for non-Indians to experience a small, but integral part of Native American culture.
At the top of this page, we mentioned the Native American Indian's contributions to Appalachian music, and to a certain degree that holds true. One very common bond between traditional Native American music and Appalachian / Bluegrass music is the centuries old practice of a male singer using a falsetto voice. Another connection between the two is the violin (or fiddle) and mandolin...North American Indians were the first Americans to incorporate these instruments into its music and culture. It's no stretch to also realize the similar social aspects of Indian Pow-wows and annual gatherings at Bluegrass music festivals.
Pow-Wow in Pendleton, OR - ca.1930s Berkshire Mt. Bluegrass Festival 1976