Native Americans

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Instruments and Vocal Styles

Among the persisting native musical styles of the Americas, singing is the dominant form of musical expression, with instrumental music serving primarily as rhythmic accompaniment. Throughout the Americas the principal instruments have been drums and rattles (shaken in the hand or worn on the body), as well as flutes and whistles. In Mesoamerica and the Andes, greater variety exists. Instruments have often had ritual or religious significance; among some indigenous Brazilians, for example, women must not view the men's flutes. In North America the tambourine-like frame drum, and in South America the maraca rattle, were frequently played by shamans.

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Inuit and North-west Pacific Coast

The Inuit and the peoples of the North-west Pacific Coast use more complex rhythms than are common elsewhere in North America, and on the North-west Pacific Coast, songs may have more complex musical forms and may use exceptionally small melodic intervals (a semitone or smaller). North-west Pacific Coast dance dramas are lengthy, elaborate productions, and the songs for these dramas are carefully taught and rehearsed. Inuit dance and costumes are simpler, and the dances often feature men using the forceful movements of harpooning while women sing accompaniment.

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California and the Great Basin

The singing of the Native Americans of California and the Great Basin is produced by a more relaxed throat than that of other North American musical areas. The melodies and texts, however, are like those found elsewhere in North America in that the songs are short (although they may be repeated or combined into series) and the texts are often brief sentences.

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Athabascan Music

The music of the Athabascan peoples—those of north-western Canada and Alaska as well as the Navajo and Apache of the south-west—is characterized by melodies that have a wide range and an arc-shaped contour, and by frequent changes in metre; falsetto singing is prized. Costumed ritual dances are unusual except among the Apache, who, like the Navajo, have been influenced by the Pueblos. Much Navajo music belongs to healing rituals designed to restore patients to harmony by seating them in beautiful sand paintings while they listen to poetic songs.

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Plains and Pueblo Music

The music of the Great Plains is the best known of the Native American styles of North America and is the source of the musical styles heard at present-day powwows (social gatherings, often intertribal, featuring Native American dancing). Singing is in a tense, pulsating, forceful style; men's voices are preferred, although a high range and falsetto are valued. Melodic ranges are wide, and the typical melodic contour is terrace-shaped—beginning high, and descending as the song progresses. Plains music is often produced by a group of men sitting around a large double-headed drum, singing in unison and drumming with drumsticks (at powwows, the group itself is called a drum). In Plains dancing, men usually dance solo with bent body (several may dance at once, independently), but there are also ritual dances with symbolic steps and social round dances for couples. The Pueblos add some lower-voiced music; they make more use of chorus, and they perform elaborate costumed ritual dances (often with clowns that entertain between serious dances).