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In traditional First Nations musical expression, the formal structures of music often hold both spiritual and political meanings beyond the songs themselves. As frameworks for composition most often referred to as “song making” these forms are amazingly flexible, and provide song creators from novice through experienced a means to produce culturally relevant musical while expressing personal creativity. The two styles that I would like to present and contrast are Plains Indian War dances and Iroquoian Eskanye Ganiseh, also known as women’s social dance songs. Each exists within a formal musical structure as music for dance, and performances usually feature songs of antiquity side by side with those that are newly composed. Plains War dances are the same songs that are used at powwow events (although they can also be used in other contexts), and at their most basic level are made up of a theme and variations moving down a pentatonic scale, broken up by sung 16th note rhythmic cadential patterns. The overall formal structure is a strophic ABB, and the cadential patterns are quite set, with minor variations from tribe to tribe and region to region. This all fits over a constant unchanging drum beat (other than accents and dynamic levels). Where creativity comes into play is through melodic variation, rhythmic variation, and Native language text—ultimately the key element in the melodic structure, as the melody must compliment the text in a way that the listener cannot only understand it, but also be energized in their dancing. This is accomplished through laying the text/melody onto the drum part using a technique where the main word stresses are always a 16th to 32nd note off from the heavier drum beat, giving the song a kind of forward motion, as opposed to the stereotypical bum-bum-bum-bum that many people assume is common to Native American songs.

Eskanye Ganiseh is in some ways quite similar to Plains War Dance styles, but with a number of key differences. The form is usually AA1BA1A2 (as a complete song) and each phrase is finished off with a cadential pattern of Gaina Wiiya Heya. In traditional contexts, songs are sung in repeated pairs, and complete “set” is seven songs (seven pairs). Instruments used are a single water drum and cowhorn rattles, and those parts are set and unchanging. Where musical creativity comes into play is through the creation of text and melody, and like Plains music, the melody is adapted to the text. In this tradition, texts and melodic fragments can be drawn from completely outside of the culture, and songs based on everything from Hank Williams tunes to Old MacDonald had a Farm are in current circulation.

My goal with this presentation is to explore just how song makers do their job, and specifically how a kind of implicit knowledge of song form influences their creative practice. Research methods used are almost entirely fieldwork based, and include long and detailed conversations with song makers, as well as participant observation in dances. As composer/performers, song makers are inspired by everything from melodies and texts learned from dreams and visions to commercial music from television ads, and somehow are able to fashion workable songs inspired by these disparate sources. In this case, a fairly strict musical form seems to be a key to their ability to utilize melodic and textual sources from outside of their culture to enrich their own.