Opening Activity
Prompt students with the following questions:
- Introduce yourself by telling us what music you are listening to and enjoying right now?
- What do you like about this music? What musical genre does your favorite music fit into?
- How do you think these musicians generate their ideas for their music?
- How do you think the musicians’ backgrounds might influence their music?
Facilitate a conversation that assists students to explore how music is often influenced by the cultural backgrounds of the musicians and their life experiences.
Important note: Remind students not to put down each other’s choice of music and to be appreciative even if people like music that is different than their own.
Listening Activity
- Distribute Thinking Organizer #1 for students to complete while they listen/watch.
- Play the following music videos/recordings while students fill out Thinking Organizer #1.
- Supaman (Apsaalooke) Note that Acosia Red Elk’s jingle dress is, itself, an instrument with its own “voice”
- Why?
- Extra Jingle Dress Resources:
- Umatilla tribal member Acosia Red Elk has spent years on the powwow circuit as a world champion jingle dancer. Now she's combined its steps with yoga to create powwow yoga and promote contemporary Indigenous healing through movement and dance.
- The Jingle Dress, a Modern Tradition An Interview with Brenda Child February 20, 2020
- How Jingle Dresses Are Being Used to Heal Communities
- Lyla June (Ask students to listen for her message of unity and working toward a better future)
All Nations Rise - Redbone (Intertribal) Redbone is a rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1969 by two Native American brothers, Pat and Lolly Vegas. Two other Native Americans joined them, Tony Bellamy on rhythm guitar and Pete DePoe on drums. They produced several hit songs including Maggy, The Witch Queen Of New Orleans and Come And Get Your Love, the latter making a comeback as a featured track in the 2014 movie, Guardians Of The Galaxy” (Artist's Website).
Come and Get Your Love (1973) - Jim Pepper This 1971 take of Pepper’s most celebrated song, Witchi Tai To, was recorded on his first album as a leader, Jim Pepper’s Powwow. Note that Pepper uses chanting (passed down from his father, Gilbert Pepper, who has songwriting credit on eight songs on the LP, and his grandfather Ralph Pepper) and Native American Church and powwow songs as elements of his music. Largely self-taught, Pepper grew up with this kind of music in his ears, and this accounts for the unique lines in his melodies and solos that set him apart from other musicians. In Pepper’s solo on Witchi Tai To, you hear the sound that other musicians described as his “Eagle Tone.” No one else sounded like this. (Source: Sean Cruz, Executive Director Jim Pepper Native Arts Council.)
- Witchi Tai To Jim Pepper’s Powwow LP
- Jim Pepper's "Eagle Tone"
- Yon A Ho (1971) Jim Pepper’s Powwow LP
Lesson Closure
Ask students to share what they think the videos/recordings have in common. They will probably conclude that the artists are all Native American. Encourage them to extend that and to notice the different genres represented in the four videos/recordings.
Distribute Exit Ticket #1 and give students a few minutes to complete it. Collect Exit Ticket #1 as they leave class.
Important: Teacher should review Exit Ticket #1 for misconceptions about Native American people to be addressed at the beginning of Lesson Two.