American culture

Native American music

The Native Americans played the first folk music in what is now the United States, using a wide variety of styles and techniques. Some commonalities are near universal among Native American traditional music, however, including the lack of harmony and polyphony, the presence of choiral vocals, the use of vocables and the descending melodic figures. Traditional instruments include the flute and many kinds of percussion instruments like drums, rattles and shakers .

Since European and African contact was established, Native American folk music has grown in new directions. Waila, or chicken-scratch music, is a fusion of Mexican-Texan norteño and European dance music like the polka and mazurka. Modern Native American music may be best-known for powwow gatherings, pan-tribal gatherings at which traditionally-styled dances and music are performed; despite the traditional appearance of this music, powwows are a modern, syncretic invention, dating back to the early 20th century, though there are those who claim that the tradition goes back hundreds or thousands of years "in essence" .