Author: Tedlock, Barbara

Publication Year: 1981

Media Type: Report

Summary:

Not so very long ago, North American Indian music was regarded as having a single, more or less homogeneous style. Such misunderstanding was made possible by the lack of detailed musicological studies, combined with the fact that most early collections of this music were made among the Plains Indians. Such musical traits as extreme vocal tension with pulsation on long tones, and descending melodic contours ending on the tonic, were once held to be racially inherent. Currently they are understood to be present in some, but not all, Indian musics, and of course they are also present in the Old World. Tension and its opposite, a relaxed vocal technique, as well as melodic descent and melodic rise, are all represented in Amerindian music - and to make matters more complex, they are independent variables.

Abstract:

Not so very long ago, North American Indian music was regarded as having a single, more or less homogeneous style. Such misunderstanding was made possible by the lack of detailed musicological studies, combined with the fact that most early collections of this music were made among the Plains Indians. Such musical traits as extreme vocal tension with pulsation on long tones, and descending melodic contours ending on the tonic, were once held to be racially inherent. Currently they are understood to be present in some, but not all, Indian musics, and of course they are also present in the Old World. Tension and its opposite, a relaxed vocal technique, as well as melodic descent and melodic rise, are all represented in Amerindian music - and to make matters more complex, they are independent variables. (p. 9-27)

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Cultural Diversity