Powwow Music and its Polymetric Construction

• Main Author: Stanfield, Norman
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Canadian Society for Traditional Music / La Société canadienne pour les traditions musicales 2010
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MC/article/view/20228

In this article the author examines approaches to the notation of powwow music. Many researchers relegate the drum part to a secondary role as they study the vocal part in all its complexity and liveliness. The custom of giving perfunctory attention to the powwow drum line has a long history in the corpus of powwow music studies. An alternative approach offered in this article has the vocal part keyed to the drum part in an exact manner, basing all notational decisions on the primacy of the drum. The resulting notation creates the possibility of other insights into powwow music, and opens new doors for dialogue with First Nations musicians.