Tanya Tagaq is a painter, musician, and a throat singer. Tagaq is an experimental artist who has attained a level of mainstream success in her career. She was born on May 5^th, 1975 in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada. Her music involves blending in Inuit throat singing to rock and roll, electronic, classical and punk styles.  Before her successful career, she had gone through substance abuse and sexual assaults and attempted to commit suicide at her residential school in Yellowknife at the age of 15.  She had completed high school through the Cambridge Bay and graduated from the college of Nova Scotia Arts and Design with a fine arts degree. Tagaq never imagined her self to be a throat singer until she received as a cassette from her mother which had indicated “throat singing” on it. She later developed her skills for throat singing by mimicking her friends’ voices at parties. By doing so, her passion for throat singing developed and her career growth had taken off from there

Like many other first nations artists, Tagaq was also a political voice of first nations Hip-hop. Her music involves two people who create sounds to truly tell a message of what they had gone through and relate it to the present environment. Tagaq with her music is trying to move the First Nation culture in the positive direction like the ‘black lives matter campaign’. Tagaq brought attention to issues such as racism and poverty to help the music world understand the struggles of her people. In Tagaq’s songs, there is a range of percussion and different styles of music which is why her music became part of Electronica. When Tagaq performs, her music sounds like listening to Ambient music which focuses on texture, over rhythm. Tagaq does a great job on that as she focuses on the type of noises she is trying to get out her songs rather than the words or beats that go with the music. Her music is similar to a sound collage where sounds and recorded material pasted together. Her music does not have any recorded material but she does usually sing with another artist who works together to create sounds that amplify electronica, punk, and rock. Artists of her generation similar to her were singing and writing music not for the sake of sound, rather for a positive movement in their community or for their culture.

Inuit are being cornered into an economic world, economic system, a sedentary way of life

Tagaq being a throat singer, her music contains no lyrics rather just sound. Throat singing involves two females, working as a team to create sounds that emulate land or sounds of different types of animals. The sounds are broken up into two different parts where one woman would create the sound of her own first, then the other women would follow up and create the other sound. Together the two women create music which is very intense and has a variety of switches in tone and tempo. By having two singers create the music it allows the musicians to express their emotions through their tone. Tagaq’s music usually starts off slow and picks up the intensity as the song progresses. Her music can be used for any occasions such as marriages, introduction to meetings, or talent shows, as the music itself is informal and no hard rules surrounding it.

Tagaq has numerous achievements throughout her career such as winning the best female artist award at the Canadian Aboriginal music awards in 2005. She has also won an award for her short film called ‘Tungijuq’ at the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival in 2009.  Other achievements include winning the Polaris Music Prize in 2014 and her most recent award include the Aboriginal album of the year called ‘Animism’ at the Canadian Juno awards in 2015. By achieving these accolades from 2005 onwards, Tagaq has brought music into the lives of many First Nations people. By bagging these awards Tagaq is reminding everyone that the ‘First Nation’ culture is not dead and still exist. Tagaq connects her experiences through music from the past to the present environment to bring awareness to the music world. She is also bringing awareness to the popular music today, by making her music so meaningful by bridging her past life, her present life, and the environment together. Because of that she has won the numerous awards as mentioned above and has caught the attention and uplifted the First Nations community.

I have chosen this short clip of Tagaq as it is a live performance of her. There are four main aspects when listening for a cue in a song. The First being Instrumentation. There are only the sounds of Tagaq singing and the one piece of percussion in the background which is the cello which provides the beat to her entire song. The second part of the listening cue is rhythm. The rhythm changes from a slow beat to a fast beat during the song. The texture is also key when listening to the song as there are some patterns that occur during the middle of the song. There is a variation in texture which keeps the return part of the focal point of the song. Performance style for this song is slightly spoken but the main source of the vocals is sounds created by the artist. There is only the artist creating various sounds with the percussion to help keep the song harmonic.

References:

Rayner, Ben. 2016. “ Inuk Throat Singer Tanya Tagaq Finds Her Own Key” The Star. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/general_format.html

Taylor-Neu, Robyn. “ All There Is” Anthro Source 120 (2018): 116-118 https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/aman.13003

Wray, Meagan. “ Reclaiming Significance” Queens Journal (October 2013)  https://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2013-10-18/arts/reclaiming-significance/

Stanley, Laura. “Tanya Tagaq.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. 2009. Accessed August 9, 2018. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/tanya-tagaq/#h3_jump_5.

Ma Rainey was not only an entertainer but also known as a businesswoman. Rainey was born on April 26th, 1886 to her parents Thomas and Ella Pridgett in Columbus Georgia. Rainey was referred to as the Mother of blues in 1920. She was the very first person to incorporate ‘blues into her performances by using a mixture of country blues and early jazz into her music. Ma Rainey built her own entertainment company in the early 1900s after an illustrious career.

In the 1900s Ma Rainey was a dominant force in the music industry. From 1904 to 1917 Ma Rainey and her husband toured with various groups, one being “Rabbit Foot Minstrels” until their divorce. In December 1923 Rainey started a five-year association with Paramount, which lead to her becoming the first ever women to record blues professionally which resulted in Rainey making more than 100 recording of her own compositions. She had composed or collaborated on 92 of the 100 songs which dealt with love and sexuality. By 1917 Ma Rainey started gathering large audiences to her shows. Her audience was half white and half black as she was gaining powers from the south. Ma Rainey started ad campaigns to promote her records such as “The Songbird of the South,” “The Gold necked Woman of the Blues.”  Due to these acts Rainey was celebrated with a record label which had the picture of her on it.

From her success in her early recordings, Ma Rainey took part in a Paramount promotional tour which involved a newly set up backup band. Rainey made her tour debut in Chicago’s Grand Theater on State Street which was the first appearance by of a ‘down home’  blues artist at a southside venue. Rainey’s looks on stage would lure the entire audience as she wore bright shining chances and was covered in diamonds. She would have everyone In the audience swaying and rocking to her music.

Once Rainey retired from music, she settled in Columbus and focused her attention on the ownership of two entertainment facilities, the Lyric Theater and the Airdrome. She was also profoundly dedicated to activities in the Friendship Baptist Church.

“My audience wants to see me beautifully gowned, and I have spared no expense or pains…For I feel that the best is none too good for the public that pays to hear a Singer.” Ma Rainey.

In the earlier days sexual roles were much different then they are now. Ma Rainey was lesbian and expressed her thoughts through various songs such as “Prove It On Me Blues” where she says “I don’t like no men” She wears masculine clothing which was not warranted in the 20’s and 30’s. However, even with having her own gender beliefs she would not allow that to get the best of her and let her music make most of the noise.

A tune’s is like a staircase-walk up on it- Ma Rainey

Rainey was the first black blues singer. Ma had to demand tasks and roles from her co-workers as that is the only way she can gain the respect she deserves. Although she has been working with a white manager ‘Will LeBow’ for six years; they would only meet when the manager needed her to sing for his white friends.

Songs By Ma Rainey:

The first song I chose is “Trust No Man.”  The most common subject in rage blues songs was the woman’s cheating man. Women were too harsh towards other women as they did not want to give them any advice.”Don’t trust your man no further your eye can see” This song was directed towards the black woman within a community. This song was similar to most blues songs but only teaching the group of women on how to deal with men. This song is crucial to Ma Rainey as she and her husband divorced after the conclusion of their tour.

The second song I chose was “Countin’ the Blues.” This song is significant as it talks about her trying to use music as a gateway to run from the issues of race and sexuality that took place during that time. “Layin’ in bed this mornin’ with my face turned to the wall
Trying to count these blues so I could sing ’em all” this line is significant as Rainey was so passionate about her blues music which eventually attracted audiences of both races which allowed them to forget about separation and focus on blues music The background instruments enable the viewer to engage in the music.

The final song I chose was “See See Rider Blues.”  This song focuses on the answer of the other women. This song emphasis that women are strong enough to care for their man. However, this went against their gender role as women never displayed aggression or violence. Therefore this song was not necessarily talking about the current women in her generation but what women could and should be like in the future ‘dominant and role models’. Rainey helped to bring this message out due to the flow of the background orchestra and percussion.

Bibliography:

1. N.d. “Ma Rainey American Singer” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ma-Rainey
2. Lee Orr, “ Arts & Culture Music” New Georgia Encyclopedia 06/17/2018 https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/gertrude-ma-rainey-1886-1939
3. Jas Obrecht, “ The Life and Music of “The Mother of the Blues”  Classic Blues 08/07/2010 http://jasobrecht.com/ma-rainey-the-mother-of-the-blues/
4. “Ma Rainey.” Biography. July 14, 2018. Accessed July 14, 2018. https://www.biography.com/people/ma-rainey-9542413