Indigenous music of Canada

[2] Traditionally, Indigenous Canadians used the materials at hand to make their instruments for centuries before Europeans immigrated to Canada.

[3] Hand carved wooden flutes and whistles are less common than drums, but are also a part of First Nations traditional music.

Archaeologists have found evidence that both wooden whistles and flutes were used by the Beothuk, an extinct tribe who lived in Newfoundland until the early days of European settlement.

[8] The Polaris Music Prize went to Tanya Tagaq for Animism in 2014 and to Jeremy Dutcher for Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa in 2018 and for Motewolonuwok in 2024.

1, released by Light 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 by antiphony (call and response style singing), which does not occur in other areas.

[10] Their territory includes Maritime Canada, New England, U.S. Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes and Southeast regions.

Songs are rhythmically complex, characterized by frequent metric changes and a close relationship to ritual dance.

Flutes and whistles are solo instruments, and a wide variety of drums, rattles and striking sticks are played.

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, anhematonic pentatonic scales, simple rhythms and metre 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.

Strophes use incomplete 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 solo end-blown flutes (flageolet) are also common.

Nettl describes the central Plains tribes, from Canada to Texas: Blackfoot, Crow, Dakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche, 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 of tetratonic scales.

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.

Chromatic intervals accompanying long melodies are also characteristic, and rhythms are complex and declamatory, deriving from speech.

Vocals are extremely tense, producing dynamic contrast, ornamentation, and pulsation, and also often using multiple sudden accents in one held tone.

Much Cree 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.

He appeared many times at George's Spaghetti House, a Toronto jazz club that was the equivalent of New York's Birdland.

A self-taught guitarist, Jerry combines modern guitar techniques and the traditional music of his people.

His 1994 recording, "Etsi Shon" (EET-seeshown) or "Grandfather Song" helps to keep his language and the spirit of his people alive.

Don Ross, guitarist and composer, is the son of a Mi'kmaq mother and a Scottish immigrant father.

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.

Derek has been brought to the attention of veteran and well respected musicians, such as Daniel Lanois and Buffy Sainte-Marie.