Tanya Tagaq is a groundbreaking Inuit throat singer, who made her debut in 2000, after self-teaching herself the art of throat singing. In Module 11, we discuss the challenge of educating people regarding all the different types of popular music, as it is a large and diverse world. Even further, to delve deeply into a genre requires far more time than allotted in this course. As a result, many people are unaware of the genres and artists that surround them. In addition, Tagaq makes use of modern electronic sound to complement the traditional throat singing, and she ranges in genre from punk, to electronica, and even some rock and roll. She fits many of the genres we have been discussing, and brings them together in a unique way, and so, is an important part of our study of the history of popular music.

Throat singing is a genre of music, but more than that, it is a tradition, and an important part of many Inuit cultures. Throat singing developed originally as a game between two women, and evolved from there as a lullaby to babies, and communal singing. It features cyclical harmonies and rhythmic inhalations and exhalations. In Inuit cultures, throat singing is practiced only by the women, and most commonly, by a pair of women. Tanya Tagaq was first introduced to throat singing when her mother gave her a cassette featuring two women performing. Tagaq was intrigued, and began practicing on her own. Soon, she had developed her own unique style, due to her lack of a partner and method of teaching. Tagaq had learned to sing with equal force on inhale and exhale, to provide the traditional  cyclical sound usually provided by two singers.

Tagaq initially practiced her talent only around friends, but was encouraged to enter a music festival where she was discovered by friends of the singer Bjork. She received an invitation from Bjork to tour alongside the popular singer. Soon after joining the tour, however, Tagaq was forced to leave, due to health issues. But she had had her first taste of performing her art, and it was the beginning of her career.

Tagaq went on to create a collaboration with Bjork, featured in Tagaq’s first album, Sinaa. It was nominated for Aboriginal Recording of the Year at the 2006 Juno Awards, and Tagaq won Best Female Artist in 2005 at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. Her second album, Auk/Blood featured a number of diverse collaborations, including Mike Patton of Faith No More, the rapper Buck 65 , and Jesse Zubot, a violinist. This album was nominated for Instrumental Album and Aboriginal Recording of the Year at the Juno Awards in 2009, and won Best Album Design at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards in 2008. Following this success, Tagaq created a short film to accompany a track on this album, “Tungijuq.” It won Best Short Drama at the ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, and Best Multi Media at the Western Canadian Music Awards in 2010. Her third album, Aminism, was released in 2014 and is commonly regarded as her most successful. It was nominated for Alternative Album of the Year and won Aboriginal Album of the Year at the 2015 Juno Awards. In addition, it was nominated for Aboriginal Recording of the Year, Independent Album of the Year, and World Recording of the Year at the 2015 Western Canadian Music Awards. The album also won the 2014 Polaris Music Prize, and Tagaq’s performance at these awards was another success. Her emotional performance featured a backdrop of a scrolling screen of 1200 names of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Her performance sparked a standing ovation of the audience. Her latest album, Retribution, was released in 2015, and also featured collaborations, both with the rapper Shad, as well as Inuit artist Laakuluk Williamson Bathory. The album was longlisted as a nominee for the 2017 Polaris Music Prize.

Tanya Tagaq has an incredibly unique style, owing to her lack of partner and interpretation of a traditional genre. She refers to herself as a “sculptor of sound”  and listening to her music, it’s easy to see why. Her sharp inhales and exhales produce syncopation that gives many songs a fast-paced, dramatic rhythm. The cyclical harmonious sound is iconic of throat singing has a haunting quality. Tagaq’s true claim to fame, however, is the emotion and passion that she pours into her songs and performances. She comes from a past of sexual abuse, resulting in substance abuse and attempted suicide. She overcame these, and other struggles, to complete high school via correspondence, as well as a degree in Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art. These experiences provided her with strong emotion to draw from, and a desire to improve the lives of others. Her songs, and albums, have very clear themes, which she emulates using different techniques. Many of her songs make use of this dynamic as well, a stark contrast between the sounds she makes vocally, and the background accompaniment, which is integral to communicating the theme.

The song “Fracking” reflects Tagaq’s desire to end fracking practices in vulnerable environments, especially Inuit land. This song has a darker, broken sound, so as to emulate a broken world. She accomplishes this using grunts, and pained noises, and an overall sad feeling using drums and synth. While listening to it, make note of the different sounds, and the feelings they convey. I find the gasping to be of particular importance to the interpretation she intends, a gasping, choking world.  Make note also, of the transition from pure throat singing, to the use of background electronic accompaniment, and then the absence of all vocals. This serves to give the song a linear progression, the earth’s journey towards death. In addition, the electronic music is soft and dull, contrasting the sharpness of the vocals, unlike many uses of synth in the electronic genre.

Tanya Tagaq is very important in our study of the history of popular music. We discuss the progression of music in this course, and often how one genre leads to another, and the blending created as music becomes more widely available. Tagaq is the perfect example of the where this history has led us. She has taken a traditional genre, and mixed it with so many other aspects, to create something entirely unique and wonderful. Her interpretation of electronica, punk, rock and roll, and other genres is different than any other, and she serves to expand the minds of others in this regard with her music. She is an example of how tradition is still important in the modern day, and of the evolution that it can undergo while still retaining its primary significance. I think that artists such as Tanya Tagaq should be included in this curriculum, particularly at its conclusion, because while learning about history is important, so too is looking toward the future.

“I’ve always been this way. The difference is that now people are listening.” – Tanya Tagaq

References

Author Unknown. “About Tanya Tagaq.” Tanya Tagaq.                  http://tanyatagaq.com/about/

Author Unknown. “Throat Singing: A unique vocalization from three cultures.” Soundscapes. https://folkways.si.edu/throat-singing-unique-vocalization-three-cultures/world/music/article/smithsonian

Everett-Green, Robert. “Primal scream: Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq is like no one you’ve ever heard, anywhere.” The Globe and Mail. June 19, 2017. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/primal-scream-inuk-throat-singer-tanya-tagaq-is-like-no-one-youve-ever-heard-anywhere/article18923190/

Filipenko, Cindy. “Tanya Tagaq Takes Flight.” Herizons. 2015.http://www.herizons.ca/node/561

Presley, Katie. “Review: Tanya Tagaq, ‘Retribution’.” National Public Radio. October 13, 2016. https://www.npr.org/2016/10/13/497569725/first-listen-tanya-tagaq-retribution

Stanley, Laura. “Tanya Tagaq.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. May 8, 2015. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/tanya-tagaq/

Image Sources

https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/sxsw/2015-03-20/sxsw-live-shot-tanya-tagaq/

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22324-retribution/

 

Today I’ll be diving into a different realm of music. Something known as throat singing, Inuit throat singing to be exact. The artist in question is Canadian singer Tanya Tagaq, born in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. What came as a surprise to me was that she attended a residential school as a child until she was at least 15, As she tried to commit suicide at that point in time. Between the school and other household hardships Tagaq has had her fair share of struggles. It wasn’t until her early 20s the Tagaq began learning how to throat sing. “ Tagaq received a cassette from her mother of two women throat singing…Tagaq developed the throat singing technique by imitating their voices and began performed for friends at parties.”(Stanley).  Tagaq mixes the guttural sounds of throat singing with main stream music styles to create something new all together.  For those wanting something peaceful and soothing to listen too Tagaq’s throat singing is not what you’ll be looking for. Her songs aren’t just music they contain a message. “Retribution is Tanya Tagaq’s portrait of a violent world in crisis, hovering on the brink of destruction. It’s a complex, exhilarating, howling protest that links lack of respect for women’s rights to lack of respect for the planet, to lack of respect for Indigenous rights.” (Six Shooter Records).

On the album Retribution is also a song by the same name. Its about earth and all the horrible thing we as humans have done to it. The beginning of the song starts with quiet throat singing and Tagaq speaking, her words are very intense, and each letter seemingly spit out in a smoothly alluring voice tinged with spite. The background noises eventually are joined by some drums and strings in a very disjointed sounding fashion, maybe something you wouldn’t want to listen to before bed. However it’ll be sure to grab people’s attention.

The earth isn’t the only thing Tagaq addresses, she is also greatly involved in womens rights, and indigenous rights. Relating this to our module on hiphop and rap the idea of making yourself heard is what ties the two together. A form of self expression to get her message across, something that will catch the listeners attention be it in a good or bad way. Tagaq’s messages have not gone unnoticed, in 2014 she won the Polaris Music Prize which goes the the Canadian artist with the best album that year. In 2017 she was also nominated once again for the Polaris music Prize, though she didn’t win it that time. Understanding the traditional music of Canada is also important to our study of popular music. In this case it also because Tagaq integrates popular music into traditional music styles. Not to mention she beat other “mainstream” artists in 2014 when she won the Polaris award.  Perhaps this would qualify her as mainstream, or at least popular. A little variety is good, and especially when someone can combine something culturally significant into other aspects of their life.

Sources

Blais-Billie, Braudie. “Polaris Prize 2017: Watch Tanya Tagaq Perform “Rape Me” and “Retribution”.” Kali Uchis: Isolation Album Review | Pitchfork. September 19, 2017. Accessed August 10, 2018. https://pitchfork.com/news/polaris-prize-2017-watch-tanya-tagaq-perform-rape-me-and-run-to-the-hills/.

Stanley, Laura. “Tanya Tagaq.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. July 15, 2015. Accessed August 10, 2018. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/tanya-tagaq/.

“TANYA TAGAQ.” Six Shooter Records. Accessed August 10, 2018. http://sixshooterrecords.com/artists/tanya-tagaq/

 

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.