Navajo music

While it traditionally takes the shape of ceremonial chants and echoes themes found in Diné Bahaneʼ, contemporary Navajo music includes a wide range of genres, ranging from country music to rock and rap, performed in both English and Navajo.

Traditional Navajo music is always vocal, with most instruments, which include drums, drumsticks, rattles, rasp, flute, whistle, and bullroarer, being used to accompany singing of specific types of song.

The "popular" side is characterized by public performance while the holy songs are preserved of their sacredness by reserving it only for ceremonies (and thus not featured on the recording listed at bottom).

[3] The longest ceremonies may last up to ten days and nights while performing rituals that restore the balance between good and evil, or positive and negative forces.

[4] The lyrics, which may last over an hour and are usually sung in groups, contain narrative epics including the beginning of the world, phenomenology, morality, and other lessons.

Lyrics, songs, groups, and topics include cyclic: Changing Woman, an immortal figure in the Navajo traditions, is born in the spring, grows to adolescence in the summer, becomes an adult in the autumn, and then an old lady in the winter, repeating the life cycles over and over.

Notably the Nez family of Hunter's Point, Arizona, and Pinedale, New Mexico, who are very well known for their singing and playing of the game.

It may have been a kind of beginner's course in learning the songs and prayers for self-protection from bad things, skinwalkers, and other evil figures in Navajo traditions.

Today, both types of songs may be taught in elementary schools on the reservation, depending on the knowledge and ability of the particular teacher.

[7] In recent years, a modernized version of peyote songs have been popularized by Verdell Primeaux, a Sioux, and Johnny Mike, a Navajo.

In the past, Navajo musicians were corralled into maintaining the status quo of traditional music, chants and/or flute compositions.