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

by Beverley Diamond

The most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the musical instruments of First Nations communities in Northeastern North America, Visions of Sound focusses on interpretations by elders and consultants from Iroquois, Wabanaki, Innu and Anishnabe communities. The authors present these instruments in a theoretically innovative setting organized around such abstract themes as complementarity, twinness and relationship. As sources of metaphor―in both sound and image―instruments are interpreted within a framework that regards meaning as “emergent” and that challenges a number of previous ethnographic descriptions. Finally, the association between sound and “motion” ― an association that illuminates the unity of music and dance and the life cycles of individual musical instruments―is explored. Featuring 166 black-and-white and 26 colour photographs of instruments from dozens of archival and private collections, dialogues among the co-authors and numerous interviews with individual music-makers, this is an important book for all ethnomusicologists and students of Native American culture as well as general readers interested in Native American mythology and religious life.

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994