Creativity and Indigenous Music: An Interview with Ed Littlefield

Infinite Improvisation Podcast: adventures in music and creativity with Steve Treseler and Lauren Best.   The first episode of our interview series, a conversation with Ed Littlefield. We discuss Ed's journey studying Native Lingít music alongside jazz, community music making, composing a song for Betty White (first 10 seconds: https://youtu.be/yp0yf5PpqkA), and much more!

Ed Littlefield is a freelance percussionist, educator, and composer based out of Seattle, WA. He is Lingít from Sitka, Alaska and has released three albums featuring traditional native melodies, which he also arranged into the jazz idiom with the Native Jazz Quartet. This quartet represented the United States in South America as “Jazz Ambassadors” through the American Music Abroad program.

For film he composed a song for the 2009 Disney movie The Proposal for Betty White’s character and played the percussion score and consulted on indigenous music for the 2022 documentary Exposing Muybridge.

Ed has played K’alyaan in the world-premiere of Battles of Fire and Water by Dave Hunsaker and written and performed an original musical score for Eurydice by Sara Ruhl for Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska. He has done sound design and composition for the world premieres of Our Voices Will Be Heard by Vera Starbard, and was the composer and cultural advisor for They Don’t Talk Back by Frank Katasse at Native voices at the Autry, La Jolla Playhouse and Perseverance Theater. He also did sound design for Off the Rails by Randy Reinholz at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Sovereignty by Mary Kathryn Nagle at Arena Stage. Most recently he composed the songs for a new play produced by the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign called The Neverland by Madeline Sayet. Currently he is working on a three-year project to create the first ever Lingít opera. This project will combine traditional contemporary Lingít melodies inside the western opera genre and will also include an all-indigenous cast.

Ed is an active educator around the country, facilitating artist residencies for students and teachers to help them learn more about Lingít culture and music and traditional ways of knowing.

Contact Ed at [e-mail]

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Executive Producers: Lauren Best and Steve Treseler Producer: Sam Blake Theme Song: “Cold Hammered” by Steve Treseler

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Hello and welcome to theInfinite Improvisation Podcast,
adventures in music in creativity.
And I'm Steve Tressler inSeattle, Washington and joined
as always by my co-host LaurenBest in Owen Sound, Ontario.
Hey Lauren.
Hello.
It's so great to be recording yet again.
All right.
Well, we're startingan exciting new series.

(00:29):
We are, it is a special day here onthe Infinite Improvisation Podcast.
We have our first guest in ourinterview series ever since
talking about planning this show.
We wanted to have conversationswith interesting artists and
educators and creative people,and like to inter introduce.

(00:51):
Our first guest, my friend, Mr.
Edward Littlefield, and Ed Littlefieldis a freelance percussionist, educator
and composer based out of Seattle.
He is Lingít from Sitka, Alaska,and released three albums featuring
traditional native melodies, whichhe also arranged into the jazz
idiom with the Native Jazz Quartet.
The quartet rep represented,represented the US in South America

(01:14):
as jazz ambassadors through theAmerican Music Abroad program.
Ed is an active educator around thecountry, facilitating artist residencies
for students and teachers to help themlearn more about Lingít culture and
music and traditional ways of knowing.
Ed, welcome to the podcast.
Gunalchéesh!
Thank you.
Good to be here.
Yeah.

(01:35):
And yeah, I've known,I've known Ed for years.
I mean, we started playing togetherpossibly in a jazz big band, trying
to remember where we first met.
Yeah, it was probably big band.
And then it was also I thinkwe did one of your groups man
over 10 years ago, I think.
Yeah.
At Tulas.
Wow.
That's right.
Holy cow.

(01:55):
So playing together and then we'vebeen traveling recently to the Lionel
Hampton Jazz Festival in, in Idaho.
And, but most recently, yeah, co-teachingthrough nonprofit, Seattle, Jazz Ed.
So we have Jazz Edhimself, kids like that.
That's the one and only.
Yeah, I tried to get him to believe theynamed it after you no, his full name.

(02:16):
No it's education education, Littlefield.
So, but it was really cool.
See, yeah.
Seeing, seeing how yeah.
Your work as a teaching artist andhow you're working with the kids and
thought you'd be a awesome person tohave on is our first is our first guest.
yeah, (Lingít).
I'll I'll introduce myself in Lingít too.
If you don't mind (Lingít).

(02:50):
And I do that because there are onlyabout 10 speakers of Lingít left in the
world that were born speaking Lingít.
And if you think about that,that's, that's pretty amazing.
So I always like to share mylanguage whenever possible.
So (Lingít).
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thanks.

(03:12):
And so tell us about howyou, how you started.
This, this project, the Native JazzProject are starting to fuse these
indigenous melodies in with, with jazzor fusing other music musics together.
When did, when did that light bulb first?
Yeah.
Well there's yeah, I mean, I, okay,so it's gonna take a little bit

(03:34):
of backstory to get to that point.
So
it's all good.
Okay.
we go?
Okay.
So I started singing and dancingin my native dance group and a
couple dance groups in Sitka.
And so I learned you know,how to sing loud and just
music was not a written thing.
It was something we did, you know, everyTuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday,

(03:58):
you know, it was just something thatwe we did when we were walking around.
When we were harvesting fish,you know, it's just, we did
it all the time and music.
And then when I was five, I startedlike my mom took me or out to
something, I don't even know what itwas, but I, I saw this 20, 25 people

(04:19):
playing these wooden instruments.
And it was a violin and I'mlike, whoa, I wanna do that.
And my mom was like no, ask me in a year.
Apparently I, I, I kept asking her.
So when I was six, I started playingthe violin and it was actually a Suzuki
group lesson that they had on Saturday.
And so I was really excited about that.
That started my my two paths.

(04:43):
So there's like which, you know,they were kind of going like this.
So I was going to these grouplessons and taking violin lessons
where it was very formal, you know,here's listen to the music, play
the music and perform the music.
That was the reason.
And then I would go to these thingscalled (Lingít) and pot latches, where
the music was the integral part ofcommunity like that was so it was a little

(05:08):
different, you know, being back and forth.
And then I started playing percussionin fifth grade and it was still, you
know, separate, like here's my jazzstuff and here's my playing Lingít stuff.
And they were kept going.
It wasn't until about highschool that I was asked.
See, I never even had this idea,but an elder said, I want to hear

(05:31):
one of our songs done by a choir.
I was like, oh, interesting.
And so let's try it.
And so we figured out my, my teachershelped me like, Hey, what scale is this?
What, you know, what'sthe theory behind it.
And that was the first step of meactually analyzing, Lingít music.
And so we figured it out.

(05:52):
It was a minor pentatonic scale.
We figured out some really basicharmonies, just essentially
a drone and it was performed.
And that was in high school.
That was my first choirand Lingít arrangement.
And so that kind of started it off.
Then I went to college and Ikind of didn't forget about it.
I focused on trying to be the bestjazz classical Western musician

(06:16):
I could and then did some touringand, and then somebody said,
Hey, what about those songs, Ed?
You know, this is probably mid twenties.
Like, Hey, what about thosesongs that you sing all the time?
Can you do those in jazz?
I was like, no, they're owned.
Except there are some songsin Lingít culture that are not
owned, which is super cool.

(06:37):
So we can I could share these.
So I started off writing.
I had a dream the next dayabout this the next night.
And I was sitting at a drum setand I had my drum in my hand and I
was singing the, the the children'ssong, the one that's unowned.
And I started playing this groove.
Were on the drum andthen into the drum set.

(06:58):
And I started singing that arrangementwas done two days later, and that
was the first Lingít and jazzarrangement that I, I created.
It was, it came from adream and it was amazing.
And then about six months later, the firstalbum Walking Between Worlds was made.
So there you go.
Wow.

(07:20):
I love that story.
It, it brings up so many questions for me.
But what, one thing that struckme right at the beginning is you
talked about in your community likethe, some of like what that music
brought to you, and you mentionedthat you learned how to sing loud.
And as a, as a singer and asa, someone who teaches and

(07:43):
shares and mentors in voice I'm.
I'm curious to hear you speak moreabout that, but not only that.
You mentioned just with musicbeing integral to community, and
like, that was kind of one specificthing you mentioned that you felt
was like formative from that.
But I'm like I said, I have lots ofquestions, but where that took me is
wondering more about this sing loud thingor other, you know, formative aspects

(08:08):
that, that you felt were during this dualtrack were kind of shaping, shaping you.
Right.
Right.
And I think that Western music inspiresus and influences us in ways that
we don't even think about since weare all inside this Western culture.

(08:28):
And so when we're talking aboutsinging loud, It's a lot about.
You know, when we're in you know,choir or we're in groups like
you know, a trio singing it'sall about the group sound, right?
Mm-hmm so that's like, it's somethingthat there's an audience, right.

(08:51):
For Lingít music and, and a lotof indigenous singing, it's not
necessarily about the audience.
It's about the personalfeeling that you get from that.
And so I always thought you know, thisis, I don't wanna sound rude, but I
always heard these elder ladies, youknow, singing in their hearts out.
You know, they were just, and it wouldbe, you know, I'm in my violin training,

(09:13):
in my Suzuki method in Western, I'mlike, that is really out of tune.
That is so out of tune.
I'm like, I can't stand it, butthey were singing for the music.
Right.
And they weren't singing for someone else.
They were singing for the musicfor the story for themselves.
So that's kind of like an interestingyou know, shift in your perspective

(09:35):
you know, what is this music for?
Is it for an audience?
A lot of the times it is, you know,for sharing for Lingít, but it is
also internalization of a story.
So all of our stories and songs,all of our songs were stories.
Mm.
And they told specific momentsin Lingít history, you know,
there were parts of that.

(09:56):
And so when we're singing and, and singingloudly and singing full it's, it's about
sharing the story versus how we actuallysound in our, in our heads or outside.
And it sounds like too transmitting,like the, the feeling, the, the
effective parts of that too, likethe, everything beyond the words part.

(10:20):
Is that part of what you mean?
Would that be,
Yeah.
It's, it's I mean, yeah,it's, it's about the story.
It's not about the sound, justthe vehicle of telling that story
just happens to be using pitch.
So you, you really wanna break it down.
Yeah.
It's, it's just we're singing or usingdifferent pitch to tell this story.

(10:43):
And there's lots of oratory thatmy, some of my friends that are in
Alaska have studied and it even has,you know, sort of a, a, a sing song,
quality to it up and down, you know,and it's just lengthening that out.
And Lingít is actually a,a tonal language as well.
So if I said Shah, that meansmountain, but if I said Shah that's

(11:09):
woman, so here the difference.
So, so even inside of the language,it's very pitch oriented which is cool.
So random thought of the day.
There you go.
Yeah.
And you mentioned the songs being owned.
Is that sort of like in corresponding tothe story as well, or, or maybe you could

(11:31):
tell us a little more about that aspectof, of when you were able to what you were
able to do with what songs or what stories'cause you described a bit of that.
Right.
Okay.
So in Lingít culture and I'm notgeneralizing, but I'm skipping over some
things for that, but there are two sides.

(11:53):
There's Eagle and Raven or Eagle Wolfand Raven for what we call (Lingít).
And so those two sides are thebasis of our social structure.
You, you know, hundreds of yearsago, you couldn't marry an Eagle.
If you were an Eagle, youcouldn't marry Raven, if you were
Raven, so back and forth, right.
And there's this wordcalled (Lingít) balance.

(12:15):
It's all about balancegoing back (Lingít) forth.
And so.
Every (Lingít) had clans.
And so underneath each (Lingít) theyhad, and so they said pre-European
contact in 1770 something, 1780.
They had over 40 clans per (Lingít)inside each (Lingít), inside each

(12:38):
clan, there were multiple houses.
And so that's in my introduction.
That's what I gave you.
I gave you my, my my clan, mymy house and where I'm from.
So multiple houses, every house.
So break that down.
Moty clan house.
Every clan house hadspecific songs to them.

(13:01):
So if you told a story or saida song that was from this house,
it was worse than stealing it,it, it was essentially stealing.
So the rules on that were very strict.
And so it was a very tight.
Ni, you know, it was very controlledthe stories and the songs.

(13:22):
And so that is still sort of the case,you know, you know, fast forward to right
now, but people are getting more and moreworried about losing all these songs.
So my teacher in Sitka was 90, 89,90 years old when he passed away.
And I was a, a young boy young man andhe knew over a hundred songs in his

(13:44):
head, over a hundred from differentclans and he would never share them
unless he got permission from the clan.
So, so, and is that crazy?
You're like, oh, I know thesetunes I'm gonna play 'em right.
He only sang it or shared thesong once he got permission.
Even though he knew more songs thanalmost anybody in town, like from

(14:06):
different clans and different tribes.
So I don't know if that answered yourquestion, but it is a very we it was.
There was no languagewritten language until 1972.
And so the orthography of thelanguage wasn't written down.
So we had to remember it in ourheads, you know, hundreds, hundreds,
years ago, then that was the onlyway we could remember things.

(14:28):
And so people had a little bit of a, youknow, it was something they were proud
of to remember a whole story, you know?
So there you go.
Wow.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I I've got a song.
Oh yeah.
I've got a song.
I'm just gonna play a little bit of thisand just to give you, this is I can't

(14:48):
play the whole song but this is a songfrom the turn of the century 1919 0 1.
And it is one of the first recordingsof Lingít music ever in the world.
It was recorded by the SmithsonianInstitute and we got it.
I'm just gonna play a little bit andwe can check that out just to listen to

(15:11):
the, you know, it's very ancient, it's121 years old, 22 years old right now.
And so just the way they're singing itis it doesn't sound Western, you know,
it doesn't have that Western vibe.
It's a lot of, you know, they'resinging close to the right pitch.
You know, it's like right here,it's like, and it's very cool.
So you're gonna hear a littleintro and then we'll play it here.

(15:34):
Here we go.
Item number 14, cylinder number 6, 0 3 9.
Strip a.

(16:54):
So that, and that's only partof it, of the recording, but we
don't know what those words mean.
We don't know what those songs are, but wehave this recording and it's very special.
Just you know, some of it was theactual cylinder recording doing
that, but you know, the pitch wasclose, but it wasn't about the pitch.
So just showcasing that.
It's, it's amazing to hear that.

(17:17):
And I'm, I'm very grateful to you forsharing that, just to, to take a moment
and like really connect through time withthat music and to imagine like the, just
how incredible it is, that that song isable to reach me over this expanse of time
and space mm-hmm and that like that wehave the honor of then sharing it with

(17:41):
you together in, in this virtual space andwith others, it's pretty, pretty special.
She, I agree.
thank you.
Well, this might be good time forshare one of your arrangements
of these traditional melodies.
So we can hear one of these non-ownedsongs that you're free to jam.

(18:04):
I love it.
So, yeah.
So I mean here is I'mactually gonna play that song.
I talked about the, the, the hook songfirst, and if we have time, we can
play another one, but this is from theoriginal album, the first album I made.
And this is the original song.
This is what it sounds.

(18:36):
Aha.
That is the main theme andit just kind of repeats.
And does that, you know,goes over and over again.
So I'm gonna play a different one.
And this was I'm justgonna sing the melody.
And this is kind of a cool one,'cause it's featuring Jason
Marsalis, Reuel Lubag, ChristianFabian, and myself on drums.

(19:01):
And it's called Haat yee aadéiand it goes something All right.

(23:56):
There you go.
awesome.
And we all know that was alsoanother little project to you
know, kind of use some not quitecontrafact, but like use some other
harmonies that are in jazz standards.
And so that one waskiller Joe killer Joe.
But yeah, I was gonna say, I waslike, I've heard that before.

(24:18):
No, it was, I did it on purpose.
So I was like, oh man,I'm feeling this groove.
And you know, there's a coupleother ones that I'm like I use
rhythm changes in a couple mm-hmm, but I put, I, you know, I, I
move the changes around to fit the melody.
So I, I for these projects, I'm not, notever changing the melody for these songs.
So that is 100, one thing thatI'm really like adamant about.

(24:42):
It's like the melody is therefor a reason and everything else.
And that's what we weretalking about earlier.
It's like that the song isthe most important part.
Right.
Mm-hmm and whatever you do aroundit is kind of the, the extra.
Hmm.
So is that fusing this together and, anddoing these arrangements to the songs,
is that fully embraced by your folksback home or everyone's, everyone's

(25:03):
digging that you're doing it or do youget some pushback going, what are you?
Yeah, I mean,
honestly, , honestly, there'sonly one person and, and this
person had a total valid right.
To say something and we figured it out andwe compensated her, their family for it.
And it was it was fine.
You know, it was one of those thingswhere like, Hey, you know, I know

(25:25):
this song is public domain, but youshould have said this, this, this.
And so we taught, talked aboutit and it was totally fine.
And so.
But yeah.
And so everybody else, I mean, Ihave not heard anything negative.
You know, maybe people are saying thatabout it on the, you know, on the internet
or whatever on the dark web, always so,so like, but you know, from what I've

(25:49):
heard and people are excited to hear thosesongs and I've, I've got my family members
that are actually learning, you know,these songs because of these arrangements,
you know, they're singing along.
So it's a twofold thing.
I'm like jazz is, is you know,an American construct, but
Lingít is predates jazz, right?

(26:10):
Lingít music.
So you've got these like super thousandsof years of culture and going into this,
you know, into this one little recordingand ho you know, hopefully inspiring kids,
their students, or human beings to learnjazz and to learn the Lingít language.
And I had a, I had a, I had a goalactually, I, on the, to write You know

(26:32):
how everybo a lot of singers sing in,you know, Portuguese, or they sing a
French song or they sing a Spanish song,you know, whatever, whatever it is.
And I was like, I want, I wantsingers to sing a Lingít song.
So I wrote some changes and weactually recorded the last track
last album that we did of the trio.

(26:52):
And it was a, you know, eight bar melody.
That was some cool changes.
And I put it as a balladSo the words were longer.
I'm like, go ahead and sing this song.
It's great.
Mm it's public domain, as long as you say,you know, where you got the song from.
So, so all you jazz singers out there.
If you wanna learn aLingít song, let me know.

(27:14):
Okay.
we We, will, if we can, maybe we can, wecan link to that in the episode notes.
Great.
If there's a way we can getthat, get that, to people.
And that's a question I had for youabout, how open you are with sharing
this music, like when you wereworking with the kids, Ed and I were,
co-teaching a group of elementaryschool students who just learned to
play their instruments that week.
and they threw 'em together in agiant orchestra, all the wind and the

(27:35):
brass and the guitars and the drums.
And we had to teach 'em to play together.
That was, that was pretty wild.
But then we had another classof middle school students.
They could more or lessplay their instruments.
And we were teaching 'em somejazz tunes by ear and, and Ed
taught a traditional Lingít tune.
And yeah, the kids were great.
And just the way that you're sharingand say, you know, just like what you
told us, like here's, here's music, youknow, this is, this is, for you to play

(27:58):
you know, respect where it came from.
And you told us the story, butjust your thoughts on, on that in
general, how, how you, you share.
And as you're saying, which arenon-indigenous people playing these
melodies in, in appropriation,kind of what, what your views are
on that.
I mean, you've shared some already.
Yeah.
I mean, these songs are publicdomain, so let's start off with that.

(28:20):
They are open for use.
With that said there are someguidelines and that's, whenever I
say, I'm like, if you're gonna sharethis song, you need to do this,
this, this, and then you're all good.
And essentially it's you name thetitle of the piece you name, who
you learned it from could be me or,you know, me and then who I learned
it from and where they're from.

(28:41):
So if I were to say, all right, we'regonna do you know, in a, in a group of
mixed race people, you know, multiple,every it's just sharing, I'd say, all
right, we're gonna do Haat yee aadéi,which is a chil children's lullaby taught
to me by Ed Littlefield, who learnedit from Charlie Joseph from Sitka.

(29:02):
And right there, you just gave abouta hundred plus years of, of, of
history of who you learned it from.
I'm okay.
It it's so with that stuff, those songsand the, the, the public domain songs,
that's really all you need to do.
You say, oh, it's from Sitka.

(29:22):
Who you, who taught it to wholearned who you learned it from?
That's really good for for the other ones.
I, I, I, I actually don't share those.
So everything you hear is either somethingI wrote or arranged or is public domain.
So once, once you get into thatcan of worms, that's where it gets

(29:43):
really squirrly so so yeah, I, Iwould say people can share and sing
these songs and, and learn them.
Mm-hmm ,that's not a problem if youhave the right permissions, right.
The right way to say it.
But yeah.
I don't know if I kind of answeredthat question, but yeah, I think
so, well, in some ways the songsthat you're sharing, you're kind of
curating some of this music for us.

(30:04):
That's, you know, you'resharing the songs that you feel
comfortable sharing and yeah,
correct.
Yeah.
There's, there's definitelya lot more songs out there.
That are clan songs or ceremonial songs.
Mm-hmm and actually thatwas an interesting, I wrote
a song for a movie called theproposal and Betty White sang it.

(30:28):
And it there's a funny story in there.
My mom was got a call from theserandom random person said, Hey,
we're looking for some Lingít music.
she sent off, she thought it wasa local person just sent it off.
Like three weeks later this guyfrom Disney said, all right,
we'd like to buy these songs.
And she was like, no, don't do it.

(30:50):
She like totally backtracked.
You can't buy these,these, like, who are you?
But she goes, I know a guy thatcan write something similar.
So I got a call to do that.
And it was, you know, andthat's where the fine line is.
It's loosely based on a thewords are different, but the
vibe of the song is the same.
So it was a thing that it was aKaagwaantaan, my clan's wedding
chant that I kind of moremodified to fit their needs.

(31:13):
And so yeah, so there there's, there'sa line and we're, we're doing this
every, every single day of my life.
We're, we're doing the line.
But the song that Betty Whitesings in the forest, I wrote that.
And it's about 15 seconds.
that she sings is that she says at

(31:34):
Is that a clip online?
Can we link to that too?
Yeah, you can make sure you shutit off when Sandra Bullock starts
singing the other part, so, oh yeah.
it's that's a funny scene.
That's yeah, that's quite a story.
Yeah.
Cool.
Thank you for that.
And well, Steve, do you havea follow up question before I,

(31:56):
No, go, go ahead.
I'll I was ready.
I, was gonna go, in a different direction.
So go for it.
Yes.
So you mentioned not changing the melodiesof the songs, and I wondered how that
related to the aspects of it being a tonallanguage, like how the, the pitches of the
melody relate to the tonal aspects of thelanguage and whether I'll leave it at that

(32:20):
right.
That's and that's tough becausewhen we sing, a tonal language, the
tone marks go out the door, right?
Obvious.
You know, maybe not obviously, but likeif if I were to sing Shaakhindustóow my
Lingít name and I went ShaakhindustóowSHA is a high tone, technically, you

(32:44):
know, if we're shocked in it doesn'tmean woman, something, it still
means man or a mountain, something.
So yeah, it's interesting.
I have a friend Dr.
Lori Heagy, who's a fantasticeducator into brain science
in the science of the arts.
And she's amazing.
But she actually wrote a song and itwas it was an interesting conversation.

(33:09):
She is not indigenous Lingít, butshe wrote a song using Lingít words.
Using the tone mark.
So if it's like (Lingít), shewould do a high, like a, a
fourth up and then back down.
So it was kind of a up and down, up, down.
up down.
So there's only two like two pitches,but it, it was an interesting thing.

(33:32):
And we were like, are people gonna thinkthis is a thing its song, because it
sounds sort of like it, but we figuredthat, that whole thing out, but I going
back to the tone marks, the tone is reallydon't get carried over into the songs.
So it's mostly I, I, somebody askedme like, what, what is Lingít music?
You know, my my middle schoolor my high school version would

(33:56):
be, oh, it's a pentatonic scale.
But I, I, think what it is now ismajor or minor pentatonic scale with
chromatic passing tones and micro, likeyou know oh, I'm blanking on the word
quarter tones, but microtone, microtone
microtones, microtonal passing notesso they can go there's they're found

(34:21):
so like, and you're like, no, that'snot the way that's just them dropping.
I listen to another recording,it's the same thing.
Mm.
And another recording,same thing right there.
I'm like, wow.
That is amazing.
Microtonal passing tones.
So, yeah.
Which is very cool.
I think that's not, you know,Western music is not quite like that.
You know, so, and,

(34:43):
and, yeah, describing it that way too.
I mean, it's puttingthe Western lens on it.
You know, the micro tone is notthe, oh, here's the correct tone.
And then here's the, you know, that'shappening, you know, when right.
You know, you stick Hindustan musicor blues through that lens too.
And sometimes you can see the, theconnections between the musical
language, like how certain varietiesof what we call pentatonic.

(35:04):
You can find everywhere,but other times yeah.
It's sometimes it feels likeyou ever trying to put the wrong
language on what what it is.
Yeah, and, and, and some of thesongs that are, you know, there's a
handful of Lingít composers, or whatwe call builders of music out there.
And you know, I found that somehave a good sense, you know,

(35:26):
there are some people that justhave this Western influence.
And so some of the songs are startingto get this Western influence to it,
but you know what that's that's life.
And that is that is creation.
That's the thing you get when youtake the risk of creating something.
And I think the more music, the,from Lingít people is better, the

(35:49):
more the merrier and, you know,there's, you know, we can all
strive to go back as far as we can.
There's a, another great quote.
Which is again, which is essentiallyjazz and the, you know, apprenticeship
program of jazz and how to learn is butthis person said it a different way.
Lily Hope said my mom told me wasall about an upline and you, and

(36:15):
you have to find what your uplineis and how far back you can go.
And so for me, my upline isme, my mom, Charlie Joseph.
And like I said, that's a hundredplus years right there of knowledge.
And, you know, Charlie Joseph probablycould have gone another hundred, 200
years who learned, you know what I mean?

(36:36):
He could have gone back multiple years.
And so we talk about the uplineand I, and I really like that
concept 'cause you know, it'sjust, we are just the bottom part.
There's so many things other, youknow, that have gone on before us.
I like that concept.
I like builders of music.
Mm-hmm
is that
yeah, they didn't, they didn'thave a word for compose.

(36:57):
So you had to put it together.
Mm.
You, you put the piece together.
And it often took years, you know, 'causeyou have to find, so what essentially
the story or the song came from a story.
Right.
And so you have to whittledown those, that full story.
'cause you could tell thestory in three days, right.
Couple hours a night, you know, justkeep telling the story or you can make

(37:22):
you know, what does the story meanin two verses of about four lines?
Like how do you tell a story?
So you have to actually build that by,you know, taking away and, and making
sure all of these words make the same, butyeah, they they didn't call it composing.
They didn't have that word.
So the, you built, built a song.

(37:43):
That gave me shivers.
I think that's a songwritingmasterclass right there.
oh, good.
You know, in terms of like, how can webuild up really meaningful components?
Right.
And how could we, you know, like bringthat level of, you mentioned, like
how can you take three days worthof storytelling and try to bring all
that to the, to the building table.

(38:03):
And I love, I, I love that idea ofbringing that much to a song right.
Mm-hmm to, to the constructionprocess or the building process
and yeah.
And yeah, on the show, we talk a lotabout process, creative process, you know,
slow and fast, whether it's somethingspontaneous and what goes into that,
how much structure there is, or taking aspontaneous inspiration, like a dream, and

(38:25):
then shaping it into something over time,you know, this kind of continuum between
what's spontaneous and improvised versuscomposed or, or built, which I like.
I, I like like that.
Yeah.
Use it
over a long or a longer period of time.
I can use it I can be a
you can
use it.
You may use it.
learn it by Ed.
What
For yeah.
learn by Learned by Ed..

(38:45):
I think that's awesome.
I mean, yeah, the, the, the, thespeed of, of creation is determines
the, it almost determines thevibe or the feel of the piece too.
You know, I think if something wasrushed, we can feel it, you know, we know
it, you know, or but if something wasplanned out and took, you know, effort

(39:07):
and thought we, we can also know that too.
Hmm.
Hmm.
You mentioned noticing this isbacktracking a little bit, but you
mentioned noticing this, like the, themicrotone patterns, like over multiple
recordings, and you also mentionednoticing on recordings as a, as a

(39:27):
younger person, that didn't fit the sortof Western categorizations that you'd
been taught and that it was kind of,you could feel this sense of mismatch.
Right.
So, so mm-hmm, you talked about it seeminglike, oh, it drive you crazy that it
wasn't quite within sort of like the, theWestern categorization that, and I really

(39:47):
related to that, you know, like I thinkwhen I was younger and getting really
excited about all the things I knew aboutmusic, it kind of drove me crazy when
things were, I knew like there was morethere, but it was very outside of this.
What I'd been told was everything to knowabout music, because it's the Western
you know, like constructs of that.
And so I'm, I'm wondering like wherethat changed, that you were then like

(40:10):
noticing these, these microtone patternsand sort of like embracing that.
And I guess this leads to a biggerquestion of kind of what's lost when
we, when we try to like only take theseaspects that we can identify like through,
through Western composition techniques or,you know, as opposed to like investigating

(40:31):
these, these details that aren'tmistakes that are, that are part of it.
Yeah, I mean, it it was well into mytwenties, so well after being able to
notice that, oh yeah, those weren'tjust mistakes that, I was hearing.
those are not mistakes.
Those are specific things that, youknow that were meant for the song.

(40:54):
But yeah, I think it startedwhen I started trans.
So I've been working on with my momworking on transcribing more songs
than just the public domain songs.
. And I'm starting with Kaagwaantaansongs since that's my clan,
but I would love, you know, tohave, you know, just a library.

(41:15):
So, and, and this is where it opensup another can of worms where you
don't want to have that online.
And so I'll tell you my concept in a, in asecond about this 'cause about learning it
from, by rote, but but having it written.
And using multiple recordings.
So like here's the recording from1962, here's the recording from 85.
And here's the recording from 2022, right.

(41:38):
Of that same song.
So the evolution of that song.
And so we would have three copies of thissong attached to their specific recording
and all the metadata that goes with it.
So it's like you know recorded bylocation you know, all that stuff in
there, but I think that's where I startedfiguring out that it, they weren't,

(42:01):
mistakes is like, well, soon as I startedtranscribing, I'm like, oh, there it is.
Again.
It's like, you look at the piece ofmusic and that's the beauty of an oral
tradition is that it didn't change.
You know, it was, it tookprobably hundreds of years to
change in versus, five years.
Right?
So in our, in our, in our, what we'reliving in right now, you could sing

(42:24):
a song and next year it could belike, I learned this song from Ed
and it's a completely different song.
Mm.
Right.
Because it went through20 different people.
So, but Lingít specifically they,we didn't like to change things.
And so, again, like I said, it probablydid change, but the length of time that
it took to change was just much longer.

(42:46):
So that's what I say about, about,you know, when did I realize it, or,
you know, when did it kind of click,it was you know, it's kind of, it's
kind of liberating actually too, totake that Western lens off, you know,
it's, it's interesting to to listen tothings through, you know, as a, as I
remember growing up, you know, before10 years old, you know, before I got

(43:10):
super deep into Western music and jazz.
So like, what did it, what didI, I, it was all about fun,
you know, and singing . Yeah.
So instead of this, like judgey, like, oh,you you're out of tune or whatever, or you
you're you're, you know, you started inone key and then switched to another key.
It's like, come on.
Yeah.
that's my favorite is like, it changes

(43:32):
ed, do you know the law of the instrument?
No.
It's if the only, I think somethinglike if the only tool you have is a
hammer, everything looks like nails.
Wow, cool.
So when you're using the wrong toolfor the job, which is if you're
only tool is like a chromatic tunerin a piano in Western staff, and

(43:52):
you try to stick everything there,you're like using the wrong tool.
And we see that all the, I mean,I, you can see this all the time.
If you're only.
if your only tool is a gradingrubric, well, school's gonna look
like data collection or, you know,there's so then when you start to
look at use the right tool, or evenin Western music, we're gonna take a
12 tone matrix and put it on Brahms.

(44:14):
Like, well, this doesn't make any sense.
This, these are all wrong notes, you know?
Right.
So it's yeah, just a differentframe or different lens to figure
out what's the proper tool.
And I think, yeah, musicologyand ethnomusicology has
come a long way at yeah.
Helping people see different frames ofreference for different types of music.
That's amazing.
I like that.
I'm going use, may I use that.
Love the instrument.

(44:35):
Yeah.
You have to say you learnedit from Sleepy Steve.
But yeah, that kind of brings me onto even the, the education side, going
back to when you were talking aboutyour, your up grip upbringing and the
music was something you just did inyour community or something, everyone
was singing together and something solacking in western or American culture.

(44:57):
I mean, some people get that in church,you're in a big choir, but I mean, so much
music seems like it's something for this,you know, the talented and the gifted or
whoever, whoever can afford piano lessons.
And in isolation you have to go andpractice by yourself down in the basement.
And I guess kind of in your experience,like contrasting those, those, those

(45:19):
two models, or like what, I mean,what are even some ideas we can do to
make, you know, what kind of culturalshift would it take to make music
more, you know, part of, part of thecommunity, part of our, our culture,
everyone in everyone in the village isplaying music, not just who happens to
wow.
Take piano lessons when you're four.
So if you could solve that for us, Iwas like, oh, good, go right ahead.
That's a small question.

(45:39):
Yeah.
That's a small ask.
All right.
Well, my general thoughtabout that is that.
You know, we had Lingít people, youknow, they were living in, let's say the
moiety clan houses, you know, you gotmultiple houses in an area, but inside
those houses there was two to threefamilies living in that each house.
And so they were singing thosesongs as a way to share the

(46:05):
stories, but also to pass time.
Right.
So what do we do, you know,to pass time, this little
play with our phones?
Yeah, yeah.
Play with our phones.
Right.
And and so I think using, and sothey had a communal set of songs.
They had like a, a setof songs that was theirs.

(46:28):
And so whenever they weretraveling, they could share those
songs and be like, this is us.
Right.
Traveling with the native jazzquartet down to Venezuela.
I was at a restaurant, a hotel, and in therestaurant, they had a little function for
us and they had a live Venezuelan band andit blew my mind because they were playing

(46:52):
sort of traditional instruments, but mixedwith drum sets and bass, but they had
some literal log drum that was about fivefeet long and the guy was playing on it.
It was amazing.
And then he goes in somethingin Spanish, he said something.
And then all of a sudden theentire restaurant was singing
along with this pop band.

(47:13):
and I'm not sure that we have that.
I'm not sure that we have that asa Western culture, to that extent.
Where no matter where you go,I can start singing one of our
outright, Steve Lauren Ed songs.
I, we don't have.
Those songs, what is it?
Row row row your boat.
Happy, happy,
sweet caroline.
exactly.

(47:34):
I was thinking of sweet Caroline too.
Weirdest thing.
I was thinking that specificexample, because I was like,
it's sports that's done that.
Like I'm not a sports person and Ibarely knew Sweet Caroline until I like
clued in and, and community music stuff.
So let me go back to that.
That's awesome.
Is the karaoke bar, isthat our, is that our,

(47:55):
that's our new communal sharing area.
It's a start.
How backwards is it that we'refinding music through sports?
I mean, I don't wanna like hate onsports, but I, I'm not gonna lie.
I think that like, music is more innateto humans than sport and competition.
I'm gonna go out and say it eventhough it's maybe a close second, but

(48:16):
well, what is I I'm sayingalso in addition to what what
does Sweet Caroline mean?
like, what is theunderlying story of that?
Do you know the me meaning of the words?
Or do we just go da, da?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
Or, or, you know, we all know that,but the difference I think in, so

(48:38):
something that could get changed isto go deeper in music, go, I, you
know, I'm not a, I'm not a words guy.
My partner is totally a words person.
She like listens to words and goes,it's this, and it could be this.
Or somebody said, you know, it'slike multiple meanings and deep.
I don't think I, I don't knowwhat Sweet Caroline means.

(49:00):
Right.
So we can sing it as a group, butwhat is that mutual understanding?
So I go back to the clan house.
Those people had mutual understandingof those songs, and it would define
who they were to other people.
So you didn't have to go.
Hi, my name is Ed.
I'm a, a pretty nice personon a scale of one to 10.

(49:22):
I'm like an eight.
You know, I, I don't haveto like describe myself.
I share my story with you.
And I think that's something that isreally not Western thing, you know?
Like how do you describe yourself?
And that I've heard it so manytimes, or like you ask an elder a
question and they jump into a story,you know, they tell you a story.

(49:44):
They don't say this, this, this,they tell you a story about.
And so I don't know if you've all haveexperienced that before, but I've, you
know in a classroom I've been teachingand I was like, all right, so, and so, you
know, what, can you tell us about this?
And he's like long time ago, Ravenwas, I'm like, uhoh, what's going on?
what did I do?
You know?

(50:04):
And 15 minutes later, everybody'sgoing, yeah, I get it.
I get it.
So we've been tellingstories for, forever.
Right.
Literally, as long as we'vebeen talking and sharing.
And so that is the basis.
I think of music and of this youknow, not, doesn't have to be global

(50:30):
understanding, but like at leastcommun communal understanding like
the three of us can understand.
And then everybody in our little circlescan kind of get what we are based on the
story that we're singing and sharing.
Mm-hmm did I nail it, writeit down, write it down.
Mm
Well that brings to mindthinking about jazz culture
and like the, the jam sessions.
Where I really love that idea that you're,you know, even your, your house, your

(50:54):
clan has music that you share with othersrather than this kind of standardized
canon and repertoire that everyone learnsthe same things everywhere, but that does
make it cool in a jazz jam session whereyou can go in a jazz club anywhere in the
world and not speak the same language.
Hey, we're gonna play AutumnLeaves and everyone knows the
song and can play together.
And.
Although who actually knows all thewords to all of them and what it's about

(51:16):
in the first it's like abstracted, oh,we know how Miles played it this way.
, but it's disconnected from theoriginal show, tune or movie.
But it becomes this, this otherlanguage of how we connect and,
you know, being a social music,we just get to jam with others.
Like at those, you were atthe, at that Lionel Hampton
festival, some internationalfolks coming, don't speak English.
Like, Hey, let's play, play this tune.

(51:37):
And everyone knows it.
Yeah, I was recently traveling.
I mean, I was overseas in London andI sat in with a, with a jazz trio.
There was a trio and they'relike, what do you wanna play?
I'm like, what do you guys wanna play?
And we, and they, you know, sata tune and we, we played it.
We were like thousands of miles apart.

(51:57):
Yeah.
Different cultures youknow, and, and that worked.
Also the, so it was some singersfrom, all of Europe, you know, so
some of them didn't speak English,but they knew I was one woman from
Japan that was said the title, butthen everything else was in Japanese.
mm-hmm, like, I don't think shespoke English, but she knew that song.
So anyway, that's, that's a great wayto build community and, you know, mm.

(52:23):
Connectiveness.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm and I was struck by what yousaid, you were saying, like, you know,
these songs take a long time to change,but then you also talked about them
just being fun and used all the, time.
And the, you know, perhaps even the eventhe key changing while you're singing it.
And, and so it's like the, I, I, just,I, I love that contrast of like something

(52:43):
that is indelible or, or constant ortraditional, but yet this like fun
changeable approach to working withthat, that it can be both something that
is like, so deeply rooted that it's not
shareable , but yet it can also be likea fun and like shift shifting and, and

(53:07):
exploratory way of like being with that.
Am I, am I, am I going in the rightdirection with how I heard that?
I i, think, I think you're right.
Or I think that's a goodway of describing it.
It's, it's more, it is a little bit of aslong as you sing it, like the basis of it.

(53:30):
So like what the, the I was talkingabout is there's this I, my first
drumming experience in front of people.
With I was in sixth grade, I was drummingnot with this drum, but like I was
drumming and it's a really difficult song.
So it's it's called Ghooch Gáas’.
And I had an unchangedchanged voice at that time.

(53:50):
And so I was like super music guy, right.
And so.
We were singing and it, it'sgot probably over an octave.
It's got an octave, right?
It's got about an octaverange for the whole melody.
And I am not lying.
I started it.

(54:12):
It was screaming high and Isaw everybody go like that.
'cause you know, all the dancersare like uhoh here we go.
That it still wasn't wrong though.
Right.
Even though I started at screamin'high, this song wasn't wrong.
Or if all of a sudden aftera verse, everybody's like

(54:34):
this guy's in sixth grade.
We're gonna just change it, the key youand start it right here instead of Ooh.
Right.
So I think there's that built into it.
Safety nets, you know, butessentially it's never changed though.
Not never.
It's rarely changed.
I should say.
And that's but yeah, there is someflexibility, like, you know, I, the,

(54:57):
one of the coolest things and mosttraditional things I ever learned
in fifth grade in band was Mr.
Buckles.
We started playing and it was terrible.
It was terrible.
So he stopped us.
He goes, we're gonna try that again.
And he came back and we're like, youknow, Western music, you don't do that.

(55:18):
Right.
You don't stop.
The show must go on.
But he was like, the, we can do better.
Let's stop and go.
And that's a, that's a, you know, ifyou're not getting a right, stop and do
it again, or, or change it, like change,you know, change what you're doing.
And I think that's a, that'sa concept that's easily easier
connected in Lingít culture.

(55:40):
So speaking of fifth grade bandand the meaning behind the music,
I was at the Coffee clutch Germanbakery down in Lake city way.
And they were selling hot cross buns.
I was like, oh, fun.
Oh, And I, and I ate, youknow, and I, I, I bought one.
I was telling my students like, doYou know, what this song is about?
Oh, no.
You know, it's a pastry.
Like if you, you know, I hadone, you know, it was okay.

(56:02):
It wasn't worth writing a song about,but the price went up to wasn't,
you know, one, a penny do a penny.
It was like 3 .75 for the hot cross bun.
But three that's like3 75, a penny oh boy.
Yeah.
It have the cross in the top.
Is that the little oh, isthat the cross is cross.
You gotta know.
Yeah.
Speaking of the band, youknow, so many of, oh yeah.

(56:25):
We have a going list of allthe songs that are the minstral
songs in there that we're like
cutting out, like, okay.
We're We're not using this one.
Why are we using this bookin the first place anyway?
yeah, that took another turn.
But yeah, we don't have to talk about bandbooks, but anyway, hot, hot cross buns.
Mm-hmm cross buns.
I can play it with a,little extra feeling,
you know, and, and that's a, I sharethis I share this song that so the person

(56:50):
that invited me to write a, a choirarrangement was a really knowledgeable
guy and Paul Jackson and he actuallytranscribed 12 little Indians, you know,
he transcribed it and, and I'm like,you know, later we're singing it and
it's fine, 'cause he really wanted it.
He's like, I'm an Indian, I wanna do it.

(57:12):
You know I'm so he's(Lingít) it was beautiful.
I'm like, that's great.
He loved that song.
We had to stop doing itbecause there, like that's not
what we're trying to share.
You know, that's like areally there there's a.
another meaning for that you know,another meaning and another meaning that

(57:32):
we're, but we kind of went with it for alittle while because he really wanted it.
And he, you know, he was, he didn't knowabout the other context of that song.
He's like, I'm proud to be anIndian and I wanted to do it.
So anyway, there's those songsout there all the time where we're
just like this guy was reallyproud to, to trans or translate it.

(57:53):
And and turns out that's not a verygood song to, to do in general.
So , so
I've been thinking a lot about this,especially with early childhood music and
about how, like, there are songs when wetalk about the meaning of songs, right?
There are songs that, well, there's theissue of just not having shared repertoire
, but then the rep like the shared culturalunderstandings, we do have, especially

(58:17):
around things like nursery rhymes, someof these songs are not the, the meaning
behind them or the history behind themisn't necessarily worth continuing.
Like, we don't necessarilywanna keep singing these songs.
We maybe have better options.
Because they don't come from like thehistory behind them is there's problems.
Right.
But then as we, as we, sort of takethese things out of the repertoire, like

(58:39):
where, and, and as, as we were sayingearlier, like where do we find new
songs that have like deep meaning to us.
And that we can kind ofcome to come together on.
Maybe other than SweetCaroline where, where, you know,
where it's really meaningful.
And the funniest thing about SweetCaroline is I thought to myself recently,
I went through this process in my mind.

(59:00):
I was like, oh, do I evenreally know that song?
Well, let's start from the beginning.
And so I tried to sing it fromthe beginning and I ended up
on a different song's chorus.
'Cause I don't, I didn't knowthe beginning of the song.
maybe a, yeah, don't stop believing.
I think people can kind ofchime in at the beginning.
That might be.

(59:21):
just a small town.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know more of those words.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wa I once had someone at a at a St.
Patrick state pub say,you look like a singer.
Why did you come and sing a song?
And this guy pulled me up onstage and he's like, do you
know, don't stop believing.
And I was like, I think so,like, think so at that time, I
didn't know as well as I do now.

(59:42):
And he like fed me each lineto make sure I he's like just a
small town girl and I sung it.
And we we did it line byline like that anyway,
Manuel karaoke from the guy just yellin'
the another thing, right?
Like does our cultural understandingneed to come from sports and bars
and like nursery rhymes that we needto replace now, because we don't
need to sing about like a pocketfull of posy anymore, you know?

(01:00:05):
Yeah.
Well, oh man, you just brought up agreat point though, by the way of, of the
feeding you lines part, that is actuallysomething that's very traditional in
Lingít culture is having a song leader.
All right.
So the song leader would be myelder Charlie Joseph Kaal.átk’ but,

(01:00:26):
so I was just thinking about that.
I'm like take away the bar, add a, adda bunch of people like 20, 30 people
singing a song and the one guy, the oneperson that knows the song really well.
And so what they would do, everybody wouldknow the chorus or like the melody, right.
Or the, the, the, the, pitch.
Right.

(01:00:47):
But not everybody would know the words.
If you're like another clan and you needhelp with the words, they would literally
say the words right before you sing it.
Mm.
So da da, da, da, da, and thenwe would sing it, you know?
And so everybody's clear on the words.
I, I just, I it was a weird.
Like, that's a funny story, but thatactually starts with something that's

(01:01:09):
actually something we've done before.
So
,are there other like collaborative aspects?
Cause like you, you kind of mentioned likesharing a song saying this is who we are.
And you know, when I imaginethat, I imagine that that
leads to, and who are you.

(01:01:29):
But like, are there other collaborativeor you know, call and response or I
I'm making this very Western language,but you know, other aspects like that.
Yeah.
It's mostly, I mean, it's notnecessarily in music that, that thing.
And this is something about likethe virtual and online learning

(01:01:53):
and online interactions that youknow, that we've had to go through.
You know, when, when in Lingít culturespecifically, it's like, if you say
something that you get behind oryou agree with, or you want to give,
like, let's say I'm struggling andI'm having a tough time talking about
something every three or four peoplewould get, say, Yée gu.aayáxh x’wán

(01:02:18):
they'd like, say do thebest you can keep going.
You know?
And, and we don't have,we can't do that here.
So, but that's the, the strange thing.
So I wouldn't say if it's mostlymusic, it's mostly a cultural thing.
So if I'm getting up and I'mtalking about a, a loved one or
like my father or something andI'm, and I'm having a tough time.

(01:02:40):
People will start like stomping theirfeet, you know, like that we don't do
that, you know, or I'm giving a speech.
And I say something veryimagine that very poignant.
I say something everyone says,aa.á, or gunalchéesh, or, you know,
they it's like this spattering ofencouragement from the audience.
And I don't, you know, it's, I'mactually gonna give a keynote address

(01:03:04):
in about a month and a half, two months.
And it's so funny 'cause I thinkthat's gonna be, my part is like,
if you like something I say, goahead and say something because you
know, sitting in front of four, 500people, just me talking is like the
most unnatural thing I can think of.
Growing up with that response where yousay something and they respond to you.

(01:03:24):
And that shows you're listening, right?
That is not disrespect.
That is, that is actuallya, a non-Western form of.
Mm.
But anyway, that's, that's a littletangent there, but that I you know, for
music, you know, if we say Kaagwaantaanyátx’i in the lyrics or something,

(01:03:47):
people would stand up and start dancing.
So L'uknaxh.ádi yátx’i.
Hey, you know, the, the people yet keypeople would stand up and dance to that.
So there is that sort ofelement of, if you sing to
someone, make sure you stand up.
Hmm, cool.

(01:04:08):
You mentioned music and dance andcalling people up to dance And
right at the beginning, you talkedabout you know, just music being
interwoven And integral to community.
And we didn't touch a lot upondance and kind of movement lately.
I've been thinking about musicas a movement practice, but.
I don't know.

(01:04:28):
I don't actually have aspecific question there.
You just talked about dancing.
We hadn't talked that much aboutdancing and it felt like we should
talk a little more about dancing.
Yeah,
I think it's it's definitelydancing goes with music.
Mm-hmm it's like singing anddancing are interwoven there.
You, you can't really have, I mean,I guess you could have singing

(01:04:51):
without dancing, but you can'thave dancing without the song.
Right.
and so yeah, anytime most of thetime when, when people are dancing in
Lingít culture, it is the same thing.
It is got a sort of a formal,this is what we kind of do, right?
This is, this is our general thing.

(01:05:11):
So I'm.
You know, dance like this and, or,or the ladies are gonna dance like
this there's that, but inside ofthat, there is a lot of freedom.
So I remember watching someelders get, you know, like you're
like, wow, that per, that elderwoman is just like goin' to town.
It's amazing.

(01:05:32):
And, and, and it was just interestingbecause she was doing the same
thing that everybody else was.
Right.
But it was just something about theactions of her shoulders moving.
And then like the same thing as a,as a guy, I was watching the, you
know, male dancers and same thing.
It was just some, you know, we would seeall these different things about dancers

(01:05:56):
putting their own little twist on it,even though they're all dancing within
the same, you know, kind of concept.
And that's kind of, that's kind of fun.
So just like the singing, it's notabout what you perceive outside,
but it is like, how do I feel?
And so watching that is really,you get to see what kind of a
person they are as they dance.

(01:06:18):
You know, when we play an instrument,you're like, Hey, if I look down
like this, you know, that doesn'tnecessarily tell you who it is, but
tells you what kind of person I am.
Right.
I'm really focused.
Maybe serious about the craft.
My, my friend Reuel in the NativeJazz Quartet he just calls he's

(01:06:39):
like, we're the world's funnestband because Jason is a goofball.
He's like, he's like just smilingand talking during the show.
Reuel and I are likelaughing all the time.
The most serious guy isChristian, but he's still like
looking up and smiling too.
And so, and so when you seethat , you know, that's, that's a
little bit of dance though, right?

(01:07:00):
Mm-hmm, just the action of thefour of us, like looking around
and looking at each other.
That's sort of choreography anddance mm-hmm so we're still doing
our instrument, but you know makingsure that it's in the concept of,
you know, what we're still doing.
So yeah, I hope thatanswered that question.
That's a interesting concept question

(01:07:21):
That reminds me of, I was at a workshopor learning sort Brazilian music
and some Latin American traditions.
And, you know, I heard for a lot of these.
and yeah, we're all asked to, to, youknow, stand up and we were dancing.
Said in certain cultures, if you'relearning the song, you're like,
oh, well, do you know the dance?
You have to learn the dance first.
Or if you don't know the dance,you can't possibly learn the song.
So the idea of just sittingthere sedentary is like playing

(01:07:45):
a song without knowing the dance.
That's just doesn't compute.
Wow.
I like that.
Yeah.
Wish I remembered exactly
what yeah, there's definitely.
Oh, I was just saying, I wishI remembered exactly where
that, where that was from, but
I love that.
I mean, there are definitely motions andthings that people do, you know, you know,
like that, but if you go further up, ifyou go further up into Alaska, like into

(01:08:07):
the Northwest of Alaska, like Yupik andInupiaq, and I'm not that tribe or tribe.
So I can't speak about it,but for them, but like.
The they do songs, but it'salmost all motions and different
motions, mean different things.
And it is unbelievable to watch,like they're saying the words, but

(01:08:30):
they're also telling the story withmotion and it's I recommend watching
any of that stuff from up there.
It's says it's a whole notherversion of storytelling with music.
Beautiful.
I love the, the synergy of communicationbetween like all of these different
elements coming together andit's, it's inseparable, you know?

(01:08:53):
And when I think about the synergy ofcommunication and you're talking about
the, you know, that line of time, right.
Of, of how this has been passed down,Yeah, I just, I, that, that's how I,
you know, feel it, or see it as thisinterwoven nest and interconnectedness
of, of, you know, that we're not that wecan't separate it out necessarily into
discrete concepts or, or discrete tones.

(01:09:16):
Right.
That right.
That, that it comes all together.
Not only in the concept, butlike, like through the time and,
and meaning and experience, also
it shares so much song and dance.
I mean, it's there for a reason, so, yeah.
Hey, I, I was thinking and evenbefore we wrap up, I think it would

(01:09:37):
be cool to hear some bits of someof the other projects you've yeah.
Been working on or havecompleted recently.
I know we're talking off air about,you've been doing some film scoring
and other, other compositions and yeah.
If you got any of those, you wanna,you wanna share with our audience?
Yeah, so here's, I mean,there's some fun stuff.

(01:09:59):
We like fun stuff on this show.
I like fun stuff.
So my friend, I'm gonna play thisone, a little bit of context so my
friend during the pandemic or he hadwritten a play, but it was for kids.
Right.
And so it was for chyoung, younger students.
And he's like, I want itto be electronic, man.

(01:10:22):
I want it to be dance music.
And I'm like, okay.
So electronic Lingít music.
Sounds good.
So this one is the opening song.
So the storyteller comes in,so it's all indigenous, right?
It's all based in Juneau,Sitka Southeast Alaska.
And and I thought this one waskind of an interesting thing.

(01:10:44):
It's about 47 seconds.
So I'll play the whole thing, butit's called Storyteller Funky chaakw.
And chaakw is, is like a long time ago.
Like that's what that means cha so here we

(01:11:16):
(music) Which leads intothe top of the first scene.

(01:11:52):
So that was like the prologue.
Whoa.
And so did you, did you produce that?
Yeah, I got, you know, I got more into,you know, doing all of my own stuff.
You know, watching lots of YouTube videoson how to like, make stuff sound decent.
So
working on that, did thekids, did the kids love it?
Oh, they loved it.
Oh my gosh.

(01:12:12):
It was great.
They had the chat going during, so itwas all schools and so mostly schools.
So we're, it was actually amazing becauseI was using Q lab, which is the sound
and light triggering, but I was using Qlab here and they had a video production
team making the zoom screens overlapping.
And so it was interesting.
'cause you could see bear here and thenthe main character right here and they

(01:12:36):
were talking to each other and I wasjust like, this person is in Chicago.
This person, is in Juno,like, and they were live.
So we were doing this all live.
So I'm sitting there going click,you know, we had a little hand
clap thing that I had to do, click,click, you know, and time it.
And so that was just, you know, outtanecessity, we had to figure it out.

(01:12:57):
So that was one of those
I love the, the thinking of the concept ofa long time ago with this like futuristic
kind of like pairing of futuristic sortof sounds and, and production techniques.
Right.
Oh, that's a good one too.
These are all great.
Oh my gosh.
so I think I've got one more.

(01:13:18):
I think I've got one more.
I just wanna pause.
I love seeing that moment ofyou appreciating those songs,
even without hearing them.
I just wanna put that out there.
Yeah.
So often people are like, oh,
oh, I bet I do.
Oh, I didn't even notice.

(01:13:38):
Sorry.
No, but that I loved that.
I loved your own appreciation of liketaking a moment with those songs.
Even the ones we didn't get to hear.
.Wow.
Well, I'm, I'm tryingto find the right one.
Well, all right.
So.
I would like to share the, I havethe original version of that song
that I wrote my first arrangement,the choir arrangement with Paul

(01:14:00):
Jackson doing the introduction.
So you know, we were talkingabout, you know, what does it mean?
You know, how do non-indigenous or nonLingít people share songs it's that you
have a person up there sharing that song.
So this was this was, actually arecording about six or seven years later.
They did the song again with Paul Jackson.

(01:14:21):
Actually it was about five years, butanyway, it's kind of interesting and
you, so you'll hear him speaking in avery traditional Lingít oratory sharing,
and I'm only gonna play about a minuteand, and a half you get the vibe of it.
It just keeps going and all thewords, but you'll also hear the
storytelling or the song leader.
So he starts giving them inspirationand then giving them the words.

(01:14:45):
So's very, very cool.
So here we go.
This is Aantayéili x’ayakha myfirst arrangement of a choir song.

(01:16:31):
Oh boy, there's some great calls in therethat Paul Jackson does throughout that
whole it's like a four minute piece andit's just so powerful anyway, that's
that was the first one I ever did.
wow.
Years ago.
And it was really good to have him onboard for that too, to support that.

(01:16:54):
Beautiful.
Yeah.
And indeed powerful to listen to, intothe combination of, as you're saying, like
the calling with the choir is just, wow.
I, I think it's a beautiful blendingof it, you know, And we're not talking
about like, you know, you can't diluteonce you pour two glass of water
in there, you can't dilute them.

(01:17:14):
Right.
Mm-hmm you can't like separate them.
So we're in this like Westernviewpoint for a while, but we can
hold on to things that we know.
So and I think doing stuff likethis, doing you know, projects like
this for all, all over the place.
There's a, you know lotsof people doing this.

(01:17:34):
And I think that's one way to hold ontothat all while living inside of that,
you know, this cup, if you wanna usethat analogy, you know, we're all in
this together, but I've got a littlepart of it that I'm trying to hold onto.
Hmm.
Well, thanks for that.
That's is that, is that the note weend on or is there anything you wanted

(01:17:57):
to, that that was great, but that's
great.
Yeah, we I did, you don'thave to go to in depth.
I actually did wanna, one otherthing I wanted to ask about was
the the residencies that you do.
I know you frequently go back toAlaska and just, and I know you,
you and the quartet, are doing yeah.
Some guest artists and residenciesand educational programs.
Just kind of hearing a bit anoverview about those, about

(01:18:18):
those programs and, yeah.
And so I, I, that's awesome.
I travel quite a bit and gets meoutta Seattle for playing gigs.
But you know, I have a strongconnection with Alaska still.
And so I do personally, I do artistsin the school's residencies, which
are two to three week residencies.
And recently the last five orsix years I've been focusing

(01:18:41):
on Lingít culture, language.
Music, and then the general artof theater arts, so performing
arts and language arts.
And so this program I'm working on isto, there's a, you know, the, the level
of native kids, indigenous kids they'rereading levels are significantly lower

(01:19:05):
than the you know, the other, the median.
And so we're working on encouragingthem to do, you know, to to learn
language arts through the cultural lens.
And that's a really big buzzwordaround, you know, in, in Alaska
is through the cultural lens.
We want to teach the children,you know, the students.

(01:19:27):
You know, how to do things, you know, howto teach content through their viewpoint
that they know that they know about.
And so that's one big partand is super fantastic.
We do readers theater type showcases withsound effects and motions that they come
up with to tell traditional Raven stories.
And they also write they'rewriting their own stories.

(01:19:48):
I have a lyric writing exercise wherethey write this big, long story and
then pair it down to a one paragraph andthen paragraph down to three sentences.
And then we put that into asong a traditional melody song.
And so they can use their lyricsfor this traditional melody.
And it's super cool, super excitingfor them to be able to, you know,

(01:20:10):
have their story being told.
Right.
And so that's, that's an important part.
Being able to havestudents tell their story.
The other part is I work atthe Sitka Fine Arts Camp.
And it's a fantastic program right beforethe pandemic 2019, that year we had
over 1000 students in about seven weeksfrom all across the country, the world I

(01:20:34):
think there was eight or nine countriesrepresented, represented out there.
And so that's a great program.
And so I, you know, I go different ways.
Sometimes I'm doing indigenous classes.
Like I did a, a class for acouple years called Lingít stomp.
And so it was all whatyou're talking about motions.
And so it was movement and singingof songs and telling of stories.

(01:20:55):
So we essentially told thosestories, added some songs to it,
but then created these rhythmicpatterns to helped tell the story.
And it was, you know, stomp it's justrhythm on random instruments, right?
So yeah, we would have drums andwe did this just totally not Lingít

(01:21:16):
rhythms, total Western rhythms,but super complicated and very fun.
And then we, for a number ofyears, we did the Sitka Jazz
Workshop, which was originallycalled the Native Jazz Workshop.
And that's kind of a fun one where webrought in students from around the
country to do a vocal and instrumental.
And we always did one song that I wrotea melody for, and that everyone would

(01:21:42):
reharmonize or actually just harmonize,'cause I just gave them a, a melody line.
So they would have to do theirown work and then kind of like
say, all right, here's the melody.
Melody, you can't change the melody.
If the melody is timed correctly, youcan, you can put it in a different
time signature, but just be surethat the melody stays the same.
So just what I was talking about, that,that concept you know, and sometimes it

(01:22:05):
was just one and five, you know, like,and some other people got really into
like, oh, that's the flat that flat nine.
Great.
Let's do it.
You know, a lot of peoplegot really in depth into it.
And so that's fun andthat's kind of what I do.
You know, I'm doing the inperson classroom teaching as
a coach and then summer camps.

(01:22:26):
Hmm.
All over the place.
So
amazing.
The one thing I wanted to say beforewe stop recording is that Ed?
I know you mentioned show and telland we didn't do any of that, but I
didn't want to like rush it at the end.
I'll just talk about it right now.
There's three maininstruments in Lingít culture.

(01:22:47):
In Lingít, you know, music one of them iscalled the box drum and I don't own those.
Those are very expensive to make.
But it essentially is bent wood all theway around and you beat it with your fist.
Those are usually hungfrom the top of longhouses.
All the way down.
So that's kind of like your housekit, like that's your house drum.

(01:23:08):
Like if you're gonna sing asong, that's your drum you use.
.They also have these drums, whichare more like traveling drums
and it looks something like this.
Can you see the design looks somethinglike that with the skin on the
front, there's a design of a bear.
And I got this for highschool graduation present.
So it's very special to me.

(01:23:32):
This is sea Otter hide on the back togive it some flare and it's made of
deer skin with a wooden hoop and thenthey also, so in addition to the box
drum and the traveling drum or handdrum, they also have these cool rattles.
And I actually didn't playthe here I'll play the drum.

(01:23:56):
It needs to get warmed up, butthat's that, that sounds like when
it, when it's nice and warm, it'sgot this boomy sound and you can
really hear the, the sea Otter.
Yeah.
You can hear this.
It really adds it's.
It's just that little, little pop.
And then this is a replica of arattle that was, it's a purchase.

(01:24:17):
So it's not a a tradition.
it's not an old thing, butit's based on an old design.
So it's got little design there.
It's got a, a person and a frogand a Raven or a thunder, Raven.
It sounds something like this.
Or if you want to add beat,

(01:24:41):
there you go.
That's it.
Hooch.
Right on.
So Ed, where can people find more aboutyou online and listen to your music?
Or your socials orwhere do you wanna send?
Oh man.
Oh man.
Add me on Ed Littlefield at edLittlefield one on Instagram.
no, I've got about two posts on there.

(01:25:04):
So you will encourage me to post more.
And then edlittlefield.com.
I've got a pretty basic site up there.
And I think you just searched Native jazzQuartet, Native Jazz Trio, Ed Littlefield.
We're on Spotify and all the
not the Littlefield whosings cowboy songs though.
No, that is Ed Littlefield Junior.
Perhaps you've heard of

(01:25:25):
. Oh.
And he lives in Marysville.
He called me once we have like, we'reabout 180 years separated in families.
we actually figured it out.
It's actually kind of crazy.
He's like, Oh, that was blah, blah, blah.
Oh, wow.
I was like, yeah, it's like thesame guy in London in, or in used.
It is a little fieldis a German, whatever.

(01:25:46):
It's a German name.
And so they came overto, into Ellis island.
So
that's probably that'sabout where it split.
Okay.
Cool.
Well, and we could put thoselinks in the show notes yeah.
To your music, not to your, the 180years of Littlefield history, although,
you know, also very compelling
Yeah.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Well, thanks so much.

(01:26:07):
That, that was awesome.
That was a great way to kickoff our interview series.
Thanks everyone for, for listen,and be sure to subscribe on your
favorite podcast platform and, and onYouTube and we'll catch you next time.
Yeah, it's been amazingto have you here, Ed.
Thanks again, and thanks toeveryone for, for listening in

(01:26:29):
Gunalchéesh.
Thank you.