hewhowowsthecrowd

who are you to put singers in a box or "category"? how do you
know what ol' style is? what 'bout Blackfoot A-1 Club, Big Corner Post Drummers, Old Agency, or the Muskwachees Singers? at one time everything was once new, or as you call it"contemporary".did you know that Mandaree used to be called "Black Lodge"?but newayz, enough lessons for today. i think all the above named drums have their own style, and should be recognized for that, just like all the "old style" drums you named have their own style.i think indian nation is the closest thing to DR. BILL, so i say ndn nation.

miss_whitelodge

What the heck is going on up in here..
you guys are missing, Eagle Whistle.. when they had the old crew up in there...... cmon i thought you guys were on top of things, mandaree is good when they have all the old tymers singing... Big bear is da shiznit, as so Battle river and yellow face... along with mah boyz Mountain Soul.
oh yeah you cant forget parker skew... oh yeah one last one the one and the only White Lodge... woo hoo

o_styo_jngl

...d.r.y.l.a.k.e...

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Beega

I'ma have ta say Blackfoot Crossing, them boys still got it after HOW MANY YEARS

old_schooldancer2004

Glad to see all these old school groups gettin in there. Gettin there props for singin wicked songs.

OK

For those of us who was at North American Indian Days this year. I absolutely loved listening to Blackfoot Confederacy. That's like wicked Old School singers and songs right there. They recorded a cd there too. That's one cd that I'd buy as soon as it came out of it's shipment box. That's one name that kinda got left out of this thread until now.

Blackfoot Confederacy

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powwow49er

This is my list. Big Corner.Old Angency. Blackfoot Crossing.Mandaree.Eagle Whistles.Mountain Soul.Indian Nation.Drylake.Yellowtail.Blackfoot A1 Club.and new crews 940.Hammer Hill.

KeetersCAT

MANDAREE

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tuck & roll

powwowdude

Can any of you powwow know-it-alls please explain what the !@#$* qualifies a drum as "old style." I dont think that just because a drum formed out of dinosaur feces makes them the only contenders for "old style." I hear many newer groups kicking out some wicked "old style" tunes (Highnoon, Mountain Soul, Big Bear, Battle River to name of few). Might I dare to say that they do it better than the fossil groups. Dont get wrong here people, I still enjoy listening to Mandaree, Badlands, Porcupine and White Eagle.
Maybe Schemitzun just had the northern category combined because the line is getting greyer between all the northern styles of singing. Which is too bad for the contemp. groups who went. Because we all know how everybody favors the "old style" than the contemp style. Fly-in Eagle, Midnite X, Battle River have a contemporary flair to them, but dont quite cut it for contemporary style. So now we have northern straight contemp?
So if any of you are kind enough to shed some light I would appreciate it. Oh yeah, High Noon gets my vote for best "old style" group. hella tight.

olestylin_chicken

mountain soul
mandaree
indian nation
battle river
big bear

Snaggin_NDN

Way back when powwow was given to us there was only one drum made for it. When powwow was young there was also more-over only one style of singing which today we call old style. That is the styles of Mandaree, High Noon, Blackfoot Crossing, ETC...... If you look at Indian House Records ( www.indianhouse.com ) there you will see for yourself that the northern groups they sell are more in the style of Mandaree and Badlands, the other styles of singing there are southern Style. You will read it on some album labels of old style groups that they sing in the original style of Native people.

Our people long ago didn't "SCREAM" like midnite X-press, Northern Cree, or fly in eagle, although those groups are damn good at it.

They used their regular voices, just with power from their gut to sing. singing that way you get a little bore bassed style of singing.

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Coyot_In_The_House

Wakalapi

Powwowdude ... I'll take a stab at this one.

I always thought that old style northern meant singing in a medium range (as Snaggin_NDN was sayin) ... not as high "skyin" as contemp but not as baritone low as southern either. And the songs tend to have less of the compounded/syncopated rhythms. To my ears, alot of contemp singing just tries to cram alot more syllables into smaller spaces to add more rhythmic complexity. OK well if you wanna get technical, old style also tends to follow a standard minor, major or traditional pentatonic scale where (I think) contemp can be done real well following a seven step blues scale (C Eb F F# G Bb C). Which then again, is sort of a minor pentatonic with a diminished fifth, in all reality. Doncha guyz think so?

I'm partial to Porcupine, Earl Bullhead, some of Crazy Horse.

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whalawitsagirl

Well Boys I'd Have To Say Mandaree Is The Best Older Sounding Drum Group For There Age. But Battle River Has A Older Sound For A Buncha Young Ndn's.

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wus_kag

Well to respond to Wakalapi's statement regarding Northern Original Style Singing, I first must state that I am impressed at the thought of musical theory applied to the comparison and ATTEMPTED explanation of Pow Wow singing. Along the same lines, I am disheartened at the comparison. Since when do we rely on Euro Centric Thought to explain what has already been known by us Indians for Multi-Millennia? We have unique Cultures and Languages as Indian People. Our Cultures and Languages are still not understood by Europeans, and that's allright. In a playful manner, let us use the Limited Euro Centric Thought Process, to examine our own Indian Culture, but please don't go in depth. Don't insult our Indian Culture and our Ancestors who died to see that our Indian Culture would be alive today, by comparing it to a minuscule train of thought such as Euro-Centrism.

With this said, Northern Original Style Singing is unique in that it carries on tradition. This style models older forms of singing used among our tribes in the past. By all means, this style has evolved and changed through out the years. Original Style Singing nowadays would probaly be seen as Contemporary Singing to those Old Timers back in the day. But I think the key is that this style Models the Original Style of Northern Singing as the singers understand that to be and as their History and Culture defines that to be.

Mato Winyan

Funny... I didn't take it that way at all. I just took it as him trying to explain it so everyone could understand.
Kind of reminds me of people saying we should not use computers if we want to be traditional.

Now I can't go along 100% with this. Maybe true for some but not all old style drums. I know of a couple that sing old style Lakota songs and they do them as their fathers sang as his father sang and so on. They in no way resemble the contemporary style of singing. So much so you hardly ever see these drums winning contests against the contemporarys. The younger ones want the glitz and glimmer of the newer style. Which is fine. I just think they should have different catagories.......... oops..... I'll get off my box now.

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