Native Americans' music Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Native Americans' music - Essay Example The song text in Native American music is inclusive of both public and secret pieces. The secret song pieces have been used for sacred purposes and ceremonies alone and have been claimed to be both ancient and unchanging. There are public sacred songs and ritual speeches which are looked upon as being musical because of the way in which they use rhythm and melody, and the ritual speeches are often in direct description of the events of a ceremony and the reasons for and the ramifications of a certain ritual or a celebration. The native music of Washington state also includes the legacy of Native American Flute Music that held high significance in the long and rich tradition of their music. It has achieves some measure of fame for its distinctive sound and the music as such was used in assistance of courtship, healing, meditation, and spiritual rituals. The Native American flute is the only flute in the world constructed with two air chambers - there is a wall inside the flute between the top (slow) air chamber and the bottom chamber which has the whistle and finger holes. The top chamber also serves as a secondary resonator, which gives the flute its distinctive sound. There is a hole at the bottom of the "slow" air chamber and a (generally) square hole at the top of the playing chamber. A block (or "bird") with a spacer is tied on top of the flute to form a thin, flat airstream for the whistle hole (or "window"). Some more modern flutes use an undercut either in the block or the flute to eliminate the need for a spacer.