Unit 2: Native American/Pacific Northwest Artists and Songwriting

May 14, 2024

Native American: Pacific Northwest Artists and Songwriting

Essential Understandings

Compliments Tribal History/Shared History Essential Understanding 1: Since Time Immemorial

Essential Understanding 1. Indigenous peoples have maintained their diverse and dynamic identities through continued practice of their lifeways and artistic expressions. These lifeways adapt and change in response to social, economic, and environmental changes and factors.

Essential Understanding 2. Indigenous peoples have created music since Time Immemorial, but have often been intentionally excluded in music/arts education even as much of contemporary music has Native influences.

Essential Understanding 3. “Understanding artwork provides insights into individuals’ own and others’ cultures and societies, while also providing opportunities to access, express, and integrate meaning across a variety of content areas” (Arts CAS Conceptual Framework).

Essential Understanding 4. Explain how connections to varied contexts and daily life enhance musicians’ creativity, performance, and response. (Music Standards: Composition & Theory)

 

Overview

This unit will allow students to learn about Native American musicians/artists who create music in various mediums. It will introduce them to artists who come from areas that are closely related to their own and will incorporate those same artists into their songwriting course. This inclusion shows the students the importance of Native American musicians’ contributions to music as well as learning an example of how Native musicians integrate their culture into the music.

 

Essential Questions

  • How do the arts, disciplines, contexts, and daily life inform the creation, performance, and response delivered through music?
  • How does understanding the context of musical works inform an audience’s understanding of the music?

 

Logistics

Where does this activity take place?

Classroom

How are students organized? 

Whole class, pairs, or trios

Time Required

  • Five 45-minute class periods
  • Or, three 90-minute class periods.

If using three 90-minute class periods, then the teacher can combine lessons as appropriate.

 

 Assessment Outcomes

Students will learn about various Pacific Northwest Native American musicians and artists and will utilize those perspectives and songs to create their own songs as well.

  • Students will learn about Oregon specific Artists. Those that represent the 9 tribes of Oregon and those who are from other Indigenous communities who call Oregon home
  • Students will learn about Pacific Northwest specific artists and listen to their music.
  • Students will be introduced to songwriting using examples from PNW Native American musicians as ways to structure their own songs.

Oregon Standards

Music Composition and Theory
Anchor Standard 10: Connecting

Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to
make art.

MU.CT.10.CO1.HS1 “Demonstrate how interests, knowledge, and skills relate to personal choices and intent when creating, performing, and responding to music.”

Anchor Standard 11: Connecting
Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.

MU.CT.8.RE2.HS2 “Develop and support interpretations of varied works, demonstrating an understanding of the composer’s intent by citing the use of elements of music (including form), compositional techniques, and the style/genre and context of each work.”

Background for Teachers

Teachers should know that contemporary music has been influenced by Indigenous peoples and many genres of music have roots in Indigenous cultures.

  • Learn how Native American influence has reached most genres of music and survived despite genocide and continued oppressive tactics, such as failing to identify artists as Native American.
  • Some resources may contain profanity. Please follow district policy when showing/recommending films or videos to students.

Key terms

Sovereignty – The inherent right of a nation to govern its own citizens and establish its own laws.

Indigenous Musical Sovereignty: the right and ability of Indigenous peoples to control, define, and represent their own musical cultures, expressions, and practices on their terms. It asserts autonomy over:

  • Creation: Deciding what music is made, how it’s made, and what stories it tells.
  • Representation: Controlling how Indigenous music is presented, labeled, categorized, and explained to the world.
  • Access & Protocol: Managing who has access to certain songs and ensuring they are used respectfully and appropriately.
  • History & Narrative: Reclaiming the narrative around Indigenous music, challenging stereotypes, and highlighting its diversity, innovation, and ongoing vitality beyond “traditional” forms.
  • Economics: Benefiting from the production, distribution, and sale of their music.

It is a direct application of broader political sovereignty into the realm of sound and cultural expression. It pushes back against centuries of outsiders (ethnomusicologists, record companies, collectors, governments) defining, recording, and often exploiting Indigenous music.

Indigenous Visual Sovereignty: The right and ability of Indigenous peoples to control their own image and narrative through visual media. It is a theoretical framework that asserts the power to:

  • Self-Represent: Create their own images, films, photographs, and artworks that tell their stories from an internal perspective.
  • Challenge Stereotypes: Actively dismantle centuries of harmful, romanticized, or racist imagery created by non-Indigenous people (e.g., the “noble savage,” “vanishing Indian”).
  • Control the Gaze: Determine how they are seen by the world, rejecting the outsider’s ethnographic or exploitative gaze.
  • Assert Presence: Use visual media to declare “We are still here,” showcasing the diversity, modernity, and resilience of contemporary Indigenous peoples.
  • Ownership & Protocol: Maintain control over the cultural intellectual property embedded in visual patterns, designs, and stories.

Resources: 

Academic Article: “Reading Nanook’s Smile: Visual Sovereignty, Indigenous Revisions of Ethnography, and “Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)” by Michelle H. Raheja

Film Festival: https://imaginenative.org/

Artist Example: Kent Monkman (Cree) is a brilliant example. His large-scale paintings, which often subvert classic European and American art history to center Indigenous perspectives, are a powerful exercise in visual sovereignty.

 

Cultural appropriation – The adoption of the elements of another culture (often a minority group) by members of the dominant culture.

Exploitation – Using another person or group (or their culture) for profit or advantage.

  • Consider appropriation vs. collaboration and the long history of exploitation of Indigenous artists.

Key Ideas to Be Aware of and Keep in Mind

  • Indigenous peoples have lived in all regions of Oregon and Pacific Northwest since time immemorial.
  • Native American cultural and artistic contributions have been suppressed and devalued.
  • Native Americans have been creating and performing music since long before colonizing populations arrived on this continent.
  • Indigenous peoples have ancient traditions of music-making which have influenced many musical genres.
  • Indigenous musicians create and perform in all genres of music.

Before Delivering These Lessons

  • Watch/listen to each suggested recording in its entirety to check for school and age-appropriate content.
  • Consider using a tool such as SafeShare to provide access to video clips if YouTube is problematic.
  • Familiarize yourself with the range of musical genres and the contributions of Native musicians at the Speak/Sing Native Archive.
  • Remember that this unit serves as an introduction but is not intended to be the only exposure music students have to Native American musicians and songwriting.
  • Consider the size, technical capabilities, and logistical demands of your class and classroom.

Materials

 

Unit Learning Targets

  • I can create a song that includes the following: Title, Subject, Theme, Hook, Verse, Chorus, and Bridge
  • I can describe the societal, historical, geographical, and cultural contexts that produced the music in which the artists presented have created.
  • I can utilize music created by Pacific Northwest Native American musicians and create my own song and lyrics.
  • I can explain how the Native American musicians bring their own backgrounds to songwriting.

 

Click on the lessons below to see the full curriculum

Course Content