Indigenous music of Canada encompasses a wide variety of musical genres created byAboriginal Canadians.[1] Before European settlers came to what is now Canada, the region was occupied by manyFirst Nations, including the West CoastSalish andHaida, the centrally locatedIroquois,Blackfoot andHuron, theDene to the North, and theInnu andMi'kmaq in the East and the Cree in the North. Each of the indigenous communities had (and have) their own unique musical traditions.Chanting – singing is widely popular and most use a variety of musical instruments.[2]
Traditionally, Indigenous Canadians used the materials at hand to make their instruments for centuries beforeEuropeans immigrated to Canada.[2] First Nation bands madegourds and animalhorns intorattles, many rattles were elaborately carved and beautifully painted.[3] In woodland areas, they made horns ofbirchbark anddrumsticks of carvedantlers and wood. Drums were generally made of carved wood andanimal hides.[4] Drums and rattles are percussion instruments traditionally used by First Nations people.[5] These musical instruments provide the background for songs, and songs are the background for dances. Many traditional First Nations people consider song and dance to be sacred. For many years afterEuropeans came to Canada, First Nations people were forbidden to practice their ceremonies.[4] That is one reason why little information about First Nations music and musical instruments is available.[4]
TraditionallyInuktitut did not have a word for what a European-influenced listener orethnomusicologist's understanding ofmusic, "and ethnographic investigation seems to suggest that theconcept of music as such is also absent from their culture." The closest word,nipi,[6] includes music, the sound of speech, and noise. (Nattiez 1990:56)
Today, a revival of pride in First Nations art and music is taking and beauty of traditionalFirst Nations art, music andmusical instruments. Drums are closely associated with First Nations people. Some people say, "Drumming is the heartbeat of Mother Earth." First Nations made a great variety of drums. Healers sometimes use miniature drums. There are also tambourine-shapedhand drums, warrior drums,water drums, and very largeceremonial drums. Their size and shape depends on the First Nation's particular culture and what the drummer wants to do with them. Many are beautifully decorated. In many First Nations cultures,the circle is important.[2] It is the shape of thesun andmoon, and of the path they trace across the sky.[7] Many First Nations objects, such astipis andwigwams, are circular in shape.[4]Traditional villages were place. First Nations people are recovering the knowledge, history often arranged with the dwellings placed in a circle.[7] To this day, many First Nations people hold meetings sitting in a circle. Meetings often begin with a prayer, with the people standing in a circle holding hands.[3]
Hand carved wooden flutes andwhistles are less common than drums, but are also a part of First Nations traditional music.Chippewa men played flutes to serenade girlfriends and to soothe themselves and others during hard times. TheCree,Iroquois andMaliseet made and used whistles. Archaeologists have found evidence that both wooden whistles and flutes were used by theBeothuk, an extinct tribe who lived inNewfoundland until the early days of European settlement. Thehuman voice is the primaryinstrument of all First Nations. As it is in mostancient music, singing is the heart of First Nations traditions. Every song had an original owner. Songs belonged to a society,clan,rite,ceremony, orindividual. In some cultures, one could buy the right to sing a song owned by an individual. The original owner would then teach the buyer to sing the song. Many traditional songs are still sung by First Nations people who follow traditional ways.
Many artists also now combine First Nations and Inuit music with mainstreampopular music genres such ascountry, rock,hip hop orelectronic dance music.[8] ThePolaris Music Prize went toTanya Tagaq forAnimism in 2014 and toJeremy Dutcher forWolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa in 2018 and forMotewolonuwok in 2024. (The 2017 Polaris went toLido Pimienta forLa Papessa; Pimienta is of South American indigenous descent. The 2015 Polaris went toBuffy Sainte-Marie forPower in the Blood. Sainte-Marie claimed First Nations heritage at the time, though investigative reporting in 2023 would contest this claim.)
The compilation albumNative North America, Vol. 1, released byLight in the Attic Records in 2014, collects many rare and out-of-print songs by First Nations and Inuit musicians from the era in which the rock and country and folk genres were beginning to emerge as influences on Indigenous music.[9]
Inhabiting a wide swath of the United States and Canada, Eastern Woodlands natives, according to Nettl, can be distinguished byantiphony (call and response style singing), which does not occur in other areas.[10] Their territory includesMaritime Canada,New England,U.S. Mid-Atlantic,Great Lakes andSoutheast regions. Songs are rhythmically complex, characterized by frequent metric changes and a close relationship toritual dance. Flutes and whistles are solo instruments, and a wide variety of drums, rattles and striking sticks are played. Nettl describes the Eastern music area as the region between the Mississippi river and the Atlantic. The most complex styles being that of the Southeastern Creek, Yuchi, Cherokee, Choctaw, Iroquois and their language group, the simpler style being that of the Algonquian language group including Delaware and Penobscot. The Algonquian speaking Shawnee have a relatively complex style influenced by the nearby southeastern tribes.[11]
The characteristics of this entire area include short iterative phrases, reverting relationships, shouts before, during, and after singing,anhematonicpentatonic scales, simplerhythms andmetre and, according to Nettl, antiphonal or responsorial techniques including "rudimentary imitative polyphony". Melodic movement tends to be gradually descending throughout the area and vocals include a moderate amount of tension and pulsation.[11]
Extending across theAmerican Midwest intoCanadian Prairies, Plains-area music isnasal, with high pitches and frequentfalsettos, with aterraced descent (a step-by-step descent down anoctave) in an unblendedmonophony.Strophes useincomplete repetition, meaning that songs are divided into two parts, the second of which is always repeated before returning to the beginning.[12]
Large double-sided skin drums are characteristic of the Plains tribes, and soloend-blown flutes (flageolet) are also common.
Nettl describes the central Plains tribes, from Canada to Texas:Blackfoot,Crow,Dakota,Cheyenne,Arapaho,Kiowa, andComanche, as the most typical and simple sub-area of the Plains-Pueblo music area. This area's music is characterized by extreme vocal tension, pulsation, melodic preference for perfect fourths and a range averring a tenth, rhythmic complexity, and increased frequence oftetratonic scales. The musics of the Arapaho and Cheyenne intensify these characteristics, while the northern tribes, especiallyBlackfoot music, feature simpler material, smaller melodic ranges, and fewer scale tones.[13]
NettlArapaho music includes ceremonial and secular songs, such as the ritualisticSun Dance, performed in the summer when the various bands of the Arapaho people would come together. Arapaho traditional songs consist of two sections exhibiting terraced descent, with a range greater than an octave and scales between four and six tones. Other ceremonial songs were received in visions, or taught as part of the men's initiations into a society for his age group. Secular songs include a number of social dances, such as the triple metreround dances and songs to inspire warriors or recent exploits. There are also songs said to be taught by a guardian spirit, which should only be sung when the recipient is near death.[14]
Open vocals withmonophony are common in thePacific Northwest andBritish Columbia, thoughpolyphony also occurs (this the only area of North America with native polyphony). Chromatic intervals accompanying long melodies are also characteristic, and rhythms are complex and declamatory, deriving from speech. Instrumentation is more diverse than in the rest of North America, and includes a wide variety of whistles, flutes, horns and percussion instruments.
Nettl describes the music of theKwakwaka'wakw,Nuu-chah-nulth,Tsimshian,Makah, and Quileute as some of the most complex on the continent, with the music of the Salish nations (Nlaka'pamux,Nuxálk, andSliammon, and others directly east of the Northwest tribes) as being intermediary between these Northwest Coast tribes and Inuit music. The music of the Salish tribes, and even more so the Northwest coast, intensifies the significant features of Inuit music, their melodic movement is often pendulum-type ("leaping in broad intervals from one limit of the range to the other"). The Northwest coast music also "is among the most complicated on the continent, especially in regard to rhythmic structure," featuring intricate rhythmic patterns distinct from but related to the vocal melody and rigid percussion. He also reports unrecorded use of incipient polyphony in the form of drones or parallel intervals in addition to antiphonal and responorial forms. Vocals are extremely tense, producing dynamic contrast, ornamentation, and pulsation, and also often using multiple sudden accents in one held tone.[15]
Nettl describes Inuit music as recitative-like singing, complex rhythmic organization, relatively small melodic range averaging about a sixth, prominence of major thirds and minor seconds melodically, with undulating melodic movement.[15]
TheInuit are well known forInuit throat singing or katajjaq, an unusual method of vocalizing found only in a few cultures worldwide.[10] Narrow-ranged melodies and declamatory effects are common, as in the Northwest. Repeated notes mark the ends of phrases.[citation needed]
Box drums, which are found elsewhere, are common, as atambourine-likehand drum.
MuchCree song takes the form of repeated sections delineated by rests and melodic or rhythmic patterns, though not all repetitions are exact.[16]
Edward Gamblin was a country rock singer-songwriter, who is widely credited as one of the most influential artists in the history and development of First Nations music as a genre, as one of the first artists ever to build a successful career by focusing primarily on First Nations audiences rather than pursuing crossover appeal.[17]
Donald Harvey Francks orIron Buffalo born inVancouver, British Columbia. He was a drummer, poet, native nations champion, motorcyclist, author and peace activist. He was interested inTibet and supportsGreenpeace. He appeared many times atGeorge's Spaghetti House, aToronto jazz club that was the equivalent of New York'sBirdland. He was also known to sit in on drums at theColonial Tavern and other Toronto afterhours clubs and jazz venues.[18]
Robbie Robertson was a Canadian singer-songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known for his membership inThe Band. He was ranked 78th inRolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.[19] Robertson was born to aJewish father and aMohawk mother and took his stepfather's last name after his mother remarried. He had his earliest exposure to music atSix Nations of the Grand River First Nation, where he spent summers with his mother's family. He studied guitar when he was a youth and wrote songs and performed since he was a teenager. From 1987 onwards, Robertson released a series of four solo albums.His first wasself titled followed byStoryville,Music for the Native Americans, andContact from the Underworld of Redboy.
First Nations singer and storytellerJerry Alfred helps to preserveFirst Nationslanguage and traditions. Jerry is the Northern Tutchone (too-SHOWnee)"Keeper of the Songs." He lives inPelly Crossing, a village in centralYukon, 300 kilometres north ofWhitehorse. He was born in the nearby community of Mayo.Jerry managed to keep his Tutchone language despite many years spent in aresidential school. Like his father before him, Jerry was named a Song Keeper atbirth. A Song Keeper collects songs and sings them at potlatches and other First Nations ceremonial occasions. A self-taught guitarist, Jerry combinesmodern guitar techniques and the traditional music of his people. His 1994 recording, "Etsi Shon" (EET-seeshown) or "Grandfather Song" helps tokeep his language and the spirit of his people alive.
Don Ross, guitarist and composer, is the son of aMi'kmaq mother and aScottish immigrant father. He is a band member of the Mi'kmaq community at Millbrook,Nova Scotia. Don was born and raised inMontreal and speaks both French and English. He earned an honors degree in fine arts (music) atYork University in Toronto.[7] He is one of the most respected musicians in Canada and is known as one of the top guitarists in the world. In September 1996, Don won the prestigious U.S. National Finger style Championship for the second time and is the only guitarist to have done so. In 1988, Don was the first Canadian, and first Indigenous person, to win this prize.[4]
Don is a master of "fingerstyle" technique, which is like the technique used for classical guitar. His music is strongly influenced byjazz,folk,rock, and classical music, creating a personal style. Don calls his style "heavy wood!"
Buffy Sainte-Marie is anItalian American[20] who was adopted as an adult into thePiapot First Nation.[21] She received a PhD in Fine Arts from theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a songwriter, performer and artist who has written hit songs that were performed by other famous artists includingElvis Presley,Barbra Streisand, andNeil Diamond.[2] Her song, "Up Where We Belong" won an Academy Award.[2] Buffy has earned many other awards, including anAcademy Award and the United States award for Lifetime Musical Achievement in the Arts.[7] She has also received a medal of recognition fromQueen Elizabeth II. France named her "Best International Artist of 1993." Buffy has drawn large crowds to her performances, with an audience of 100,000 in oneDenmark concert. She regularly performs in the small First Nations communities. In 1993, she helped to create a special award category within theJuno Awards competition to recognize the best recordings of Canadian Indigenous musicians. Buffy received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Arts at the 1998 National Aboriginal Achievement Awards.[4]
The duo quickly became popular regionally in Quebec, and in 1988 they were featured in a documentary on the Innu for a Quebec television station. They were soon brought to Montreal to record, and released their self-titled debut album in 1989. Although that album was recorded in their native Innu-aimun language, spoken by just 12,000 people in the world, the album quickly became a major hit in Quebec, and soon in English Canada as well, eventually being certified double platinum. The singles "E Uassiuian" and "Tshinanu" were popular hits for the band.[22]
Leela Gilday is a singer and songwriter, born and raised inYellowknife, Northwest Territories. She is one of the North's better known performing artists. Since her early start in music, Leela has been nominated at theJuno Awards for "Best Music of Aboriginal Canada (2003)" and has won three awards in 2002 from the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards: Best Female Artist, Best Folk Album, Best Songwriter. She won the2007 Juno for Aboriginal Recording of the Year forSedzé, her second album.[23]
Glen Meadmore is an actor and performance artist currently residing in Los Angeles. He has been described as "...the world's greatest exponent of the genre known as gay Christian punk".[24] He is sometimes referred to as "Cowpunk". working as aperformance artist, appearing at the famed punk, avant garde, artist scenester hangout nightclub theAnti-Club where he became renowned for his outrageous performances.[25] During this time, he met African American queer political performance artistVaginal Davis and the two formed the band Pedro, Muriel and Esther, also known asPME, one of the earliestqueer punk bands to emerge.
Derek Miller, born inSix Nations on 29 October 1974, is anIndigenous Canadian singer-songwriter. He is a two-time winner of theJuno Award forJuno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year, for his albumsLovesick Blues andThe Dirty Looks. Derek has been brought to the attention of veteran and well respected musicians, such asDaniel Lanois and Buffy Sainte-Marie.[26]
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