Visions of Sound: Musical Instruments of First Nations Communities in Northeastern America

Desmond Maley is the music librarian at the J.W. Tate Library,
Huntington College, Laurentian University.

This impressive, lavishly illustrated survey of the musical instruments
of Northeastern America aboriginal peoples is based on field research in
15 Native communities and visits to 24 museums and archives.

Visions of Sound brings together 164 annotated black-and-white
photographs and 27 color plates of drums, rattles, flutes, hunting-call
instruments, and Native people in a variety of settings, ranging from
instrument-making to intertribal celebrations.

In the book, Diamond, a music professor at York University, and Cronk
and von Rosen, graduate students in music at American universities,
explore such themes as cultural knowledge, oral and written traditions,
the relationship of musical instruments to clan and cosmos, authenticity
in Native music, language and musical instruments, instrumental design
and structure, and the interconnectedness of sound and motion. They also
provide fresh perspectives on the music and spirituality of the
Anishnabe, Iroquois, Innu, and Wabanaki peoples of the Eastern
Woodlands.

From the outset, the authors make clear their intention to respect the
priority and integrity of Native concerns. For this reason, private
information pertaining to sacred observances is not disclosed,
photographs of certain instruments are not included, and several
instruments are omitted altogether.

Where possible, Native elders, teachers, and musicians are allowed to
speak in their own words, including the moving and profound Anishnabe
version of the creation story and peace drum given by Eddie Benton-Benai
at a drum workshop on Birch Island, Ontario, in 1986.

The innovative “dialogues” among the authors that preface chapters
are sufficiently rewarding that one wishes they had been extended. They
compensate for the book’s occasional lapses into academic jargon,
which make the opening chapters especially tough going for
nonspecialists.

Completing this excellent publication is a bibliography and an appendix
on the historical and musical development of First Nations peoples. A
catalogue on computer floppy disk is also forthcoming that will contain
physical descriptions, provenance and museum documentation, and
consultants’ commentaries where available.