CEM

I've never heard of singing on the beat as being the right way to sing. I don't want to criticize a drum group that I've never listened to.

OnTheRoad

Well Rabbitbelly, I will do CEM a favor by criticizing the drums I have heard. It seems to me that if you listen to a tape, you can notice the singers singing offbeat. I did when I first started. I guess it came naturally. I have a feeling that the only source for their information is commercial tapes. Bad idea. Very few drums around here have traveled anywhere out of their homestate to go to a powwow. Very few quality powwows in their homestate mind you. If they do, they choose one that has poor drums. The sorry part of it is that these same clowns make people come to the conclusion that all drums in the southeast suck. It's not the case.

OTR

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The expressed opinions above are not particularly the opinions of the author's friends, family, or employer.

rabbitbelly

Ya know, I just remembered this. A while back, an older friend of mine played me an old vinyl copy of some Mohawk songs. This wasn't water drum, it was a big drum and he played it for me 'cause we were having this same discussion (on beat/off beat). They sounded EXACTLY like those eastern drums today. Slow beat, unenthusiastic singing and.....they sang on the beat! Don't know who they were or what the deal with it all was,but I do know the record was from the 50's or 60's and he grew up in the New York Indian scene(even though he was a pueblo guy) and told me this was Mohawk style. I don't know, but I guess it's been around for a while anyway!

Beth

The southern singers seem to forget that a lot of the old southern singers (men) sang as
high as the northern boys.

OnTheRoad

Rabbitbelly:
You may be correct. I know nothing of Mohawk songs so I can't explain that one. But the same drums we are discusssing probably know nothing of them either. Most sing Cozad songs or songs off of the more popular commercial tapes. They do the songs no justice. At all. There's a drum from New York called Siver Cloud. They sing southern songs offbeat. These guys are pretty good. I have come to the conclusion that the drums around here could care less and most are'nt willing to listen. There are exceptions to everything however.

OTR

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The expressed opinions above are not particularly the opinions of the author's friends, family, or employer.

raptor

In my experience, most native singers sing in between the beats of the drum (for lack of any easier way of explaining it), including the Mohawks and the other Iroquois people, when singing their own songs. When singing foreign music, they have to learn it just like any hob. Those tapes from the old Pueblo friend were probably made for a performance group and probably bear no connection to indigenous Iroquois music which, depending on the song, can be as exciting and pleasing as any music you have ever heard. The recordings from Irocrafts will bear me out on this point, I think. Listen especially to the rabbit dance and round dance songs, which were brought to the reserves in only the last thirty or forty years or so from Oklahoma and from the Winnebago to get an idea what changes can occurr when music is transferred across cultural lines.

rabbitbelly

You could be right raptor. I couldn't say for sure what the record was about. All I know was what he told me as he put it on the turntable. And you're definately right aboout those Iroquios songs. Water drum stuff I mean. That's alot of fun dancing. Hard stuff too!

Sheila

Hello, my two sons are just learning to drum and sing. They are drumming for the OA dance team.They are looking for the words or vocables to a Lakota Kettle Dance song. Being boy scouts, they can not use a religious, or ceremonial song. It has to be a social song. Could any of you suggest a tape we could purchase or a web link that would have a social Kettle Song?
Thanks
Sheila

Jacques

Sorry,but what i learned about Kettle dance was that they are used as a healing ceremony.
Usually in the kettle there is a puppy whose meat is given to the sick.So I don't think that its appropriate to sing those out of context.There are plenty of other songs[intertribals,grass dance]that we use for just the fun of dancing.Intertribals have no words and are therefore easier to learn.