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Blackfoot music (best translated in the Blackfoot language as nitsínixki - "I sing", from nínixksini - "song") is primarily a vocal kind of music, using few instruments (called ninixkiátsis, derived from the word for song and associated primarily with European-American instruments), only percussion and voice, and few words. By far the most important percussion instruments are drums (istókimatsis), with rattle s (auaná) and bells often being associated with the objects, such as sticks or dancers legs, they are attached to rather than as instruments of their own. The basic musical unit is the song, and musicians, people who sing and drum, are called singers or drummers with both words being equivalent and referring to both activities (p.49). Women, though increasingly equal participants, are not called singers or drummers and it is considered somewhat inappropriate for women to sing loudly or alone. Páskani - "dance" or "ceremony" - often implicitly includes music and is often applied to ceremonies with little dancing and much singing. (Nettl, 1989)
Bruno Nettl (1989, p. 162-163) proposes that Blackfoot music is an "emblem of the heroic and the difficult in Blackfoot life" as evidenced by: "the separation of music from the rest of life through aspects of performance practice, a sharp distinction between singing and speaking, the absence of words in many songs, and the use of song texts to impart major points in myth in a condensed and concentrated form all relate music to the heroic aspect of life. There is a close association of music to [sic] warfare and the fact that most singing was done by men and the musical role, even today, of community leaders and principal carriers of tradition. The acquisition of songs as associated with difficult feats--learned in visions brought about through self-denial and torture, required to be learned quickly, sung with the expenditure of great energy, sung in a difficult vocal style--all of this puts songs in the category of the heroic and the difficult."
1 Musical thought
Blackfoot musical thought is also more enumerative than European influenced musical thought which tends to be more hierarchical. Songs are differentiated primarily by use: in ceremonies, often associated with specific objects (especially in medicine bundles), concepts, dances, or actions, or during gambling (hand game), or other uses. Songs are differentiated secondarily by association with a person, and thirdly and less commonly by association with a story or event. There are no types of music which are considered more less music or musical, such as in Iranian musical thought. (Nettl, 1989)
Music, singing, is not thought to be like speech, or any other sound at all. There are no spoken introductions or conclusions and no "intermediary forms" between speech and singing (pg.50).
Rehearsing happens increasingly, likely because of the influence of European influenced concepts of performance, song origin or composition, and a change in the purpose of music: from communication with the supernatural to communication with other humans.
2 Singing
Singing consists mostly of vocableA vocable is a word used without meaning. They are used in Blackfoot music and other American Indian music and other music such as Pygmy music and the music of the Maldives. The Blackfoot, like other Plains Indians, use consonants h y w and vowels. They as, though recordings and reports from the early 1900sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s Years: 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 Events and Trends Technology Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first doc and prior indicate there were a great deal more lyricA Lyric (from the Greek) is a song sung with a lyre. Now, it is commonly used to mean a song of no defined length or structure. A lyric poem is one that expresses a subjective, personal point of view. I would be the Lyric Ever on the lip, Rather than thes or vocal texts. Blackfoot people see the profusion of words in European American music and African American musicAfrican Americans black music formerly known as race music have long constituted a large minority of the population of the United States. They were originally brought to North America to work as slaves in cotton plantations, bringing with them typically p as lessening the importance and meaning of both words and music; and the same for the manner of listening to such music, that is, for entertainmentEntertainment Entertainment is an amusement or diversion intended to hold the attention of an audience or its participants. Examples of entertainment include: Animation (primarily traditional, computer, and stop-motion) Betting Chat Circus Dance Film Drin or enjoyment, often while doing other things: if someone needed to say so many words, why didn't they just talk (p.69). Blackfoot music is not based on instruments or texts, and singing is not supposed to sound like talking (or imitate any other sound). Typically, songs which contain texts are short and not repetitive, such as: "It's a bad thing to be an old man," (Nettl, 1989, p.73, 1951 recording of a Crazy Dog Society song) or the relatively lengthy, "Yonder woman, you must take me. I am powerful. Yonder woman, you must take me, you must hear me. Where I sit is powerful." (Nettl, 1989, p.73, Wissler and Duvall 1909:85 sung by a rock to a woman in the buffalo-rock myth). Often when the text takes up most of the melody with fewer vocables the melodies are short. The vocables used, as in Plains Indian singing, are the consonantA consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. The word consonant comes from Latin meaning "sounding with" or "sounding together", the idea being that consonants dos h, y, w, and vowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract, in contrast to consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the vocal tract. The word vos. They avoid n, c (ts) and other consonants. i and e tend slightly to be higher in pitch, a, o, and u lower (p.71). (Nettl, 1989)
Solo singing may have been more prominent, or the norm, in the past, but group singing has increased in prominence, with singing/drumming groups called "drums". Vocal blending is not required in ensemble singing. The leader may begin the head motive or phrase of a song, and then be repeated or "raised" by another singer, possibly the second singer (p.149). In pan-Indian powwow terminology, stanzas to a song are often called push-ups (p.150). (Nettl, 1989)
