Fluency Project | HoH CO | FREQUENCY [ Resources ]
Fluency Project | HoH CO | FREQUENCY [ Resources ]

Fluency Project | HoH CO | FREQUENCY [ Resources ]

Additional Resources

Indigenous Music in Colorado & Informational Guides

Audio & Multimedia

These digital resources provide primary source audio, educator packets, video, and curated background to support the musical and historical layers of this program.

Ute Music and Bear Dance

Ute Music & the Bear Dance

McAllester, David P. “The Bear Dance of the Ute Indians.” Ethnomusicology, 1963.
Smithsonian/Native Knowledge 360° Bear Dance resources

  • The Bear Dance is a central ceremonial event among the Ute people, marking the return of spring and the bear from hibernation.
  • The music is anchored by the water drum, which produces a deep, steady note considered to carry spiritual significance.
  • Songs are simple, repetitive, and chanted with deep meaning, often referencing the bear’s movements.
  • The start of the Bear Dance always involves finding a communal rhythm—everyone hears the drum and tunes into the group’s unified sound, echoing how families and community come together.
  • The act of “tuning in” or anchoring to the drum’s pitch signifies group alignment and emotional connection more than individual performance.

Arapaho and Cheyenne Musical Traditions

Cheyenne Music & Healing Traditions

Mooney, James. The Cheyenne (Ethnological report);
Keeling, Richard. Music and Culture in Native America.

Cheyenne healing songs are traditionally used in ceremony and are anchored by a communal drumbeat or chant.

  • Each healing song begins with the group attuning themselves to the “home” pitch, often led by a medicine person or elder.
  • The process of singing together—matching pitch, echoing back, holding the rhythm—serves both as a way of tuning the group emotionally and marking a safe, sacred space.
  • Participation is based on willingness and presence, not on individual prowess: whoever is there, belongs, and is asked to add their voice.
  • These songs are intended for both personal and group healing, embedding the importance of unity, safety, and belonging in their structure.

Arapaho Music & Community Song

Powers, William K. – “Arapaho Music and Dance” in Plains Indian Musical Traditions;
Heth, Charlotte. Native American Dance: Ceremonies and Social Traditions.

  • Arapaho music is closely tied to vocal tradition—communal chants accompanied by drums and rattles.
  • Songs are considered living entities, passed from person to person; starting a song means finding and sharing a pitch, often chosen by a respected singer. Everyone joins once the reference note is found.
  • Music marks important moments: feasts, naming ceremonies, and collective prayers for health or rain.
  • The process is inherently inclusive: there are no auditions or requirements to join; all voices are needed to bring the song to life, and tuning to each other is how community grows.
  • Many songs begin with a soft, sustained anchor note—welcoming all to listen before joining, so that “belonging” starts before the first beat.

 

Indigenous Instrument Making in Historical Colorado: Resources

Southern Ute Cultural Center & Museum — Bear Dance Teacher Toolkit
Comprehensive guide on Bear Dance music, including water drum construction and use.
Download the PDF

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) — Bear Dance
Background on Bear Dance and water drum’s role in Ute tradition.
Bear Dance Educational Materials

Denver Art Museum — Indigenous Arts of North America: Instruments and Music
Artifact images and descriptions of regional Indigenous musical instruments.
View resource

Smithsonian Folkways — Traditional Music Instruments: Plains/Plateau
Audio, images, and descriptions of hand drums, rattles, flutes, and more.
Explore the guide

History Colorado — American Indian Teacher Resources
Activities and readings about Colorado Native music and drum making.
Teacher resources

PBS Native America — Powwow Trail: Drums and Community Music
Short video segments on traditional drum circles and music-making.
Watch segment

Common Instruments:

  • Water drums (wood, hide, water for tone)
  • Hand/frame drums (wood, hide, sinew)
  • Rattles (hide, gourd, seeds or stones)
  • Flutes/whistles (wood, river cane, bone)

Key Context:
Instrument making reflects the materials and traditions of each community. Musical craft is a living heritage, connecting people to land, ancestors, and story.

Colorado’s sandstone cliffs, canyons, and amphitheaters are not only landmarks of geological history, but living instruments—shaping and magnifying music, connecting people, and reminding us that our stories are written in both stone and sound.

Sandstone Amphitheaters: Colorado’s Natural Soundscapes

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

  • Location: Just west of Denver, outside of Morrison.
  • Geological Features:
    • The amphitheater is framed by dramatic, tilted sandstone formations—Ship Rock and Creation Rock—formed over 300 million years by geological uplift and erosion.
    • The rocks are part of the Fountain Formation, whose composition and shape allow for stunning natural acoustics.
  • Musical Association:
    • Known internationally, Red Rocks is revered for its perfect, open-air sound quality. The curved sandstone walls reflect and amplify music, allowing performers and audiences to experience pure sound without electronic amplification.
    • The site has hosted Indigenous gatherings, community bands, world-famous concerts, and collaborative musical experiments, uniting people across diverse backgrounds through shared sonic experience.
    • The relationship between the land’s structure and the music made there highlights how geology can be an active “participant” in music-making.

Other Geological Music Sites in Colorado

  • Garden of the Gods:
    • While not a venue, the towering sandstone fins and formations create unique echo patterns and have long been sites of Indigenous song and acoustic experimentation.
  • The Great Sand Dunes “Singing Sands”:
    • In certain conditions, Colorado’s sand dunes emit a low, resonant humming or booming sound when grains slide together—a natural phenomenon of granular flow, known as “singing sand.”
    • NPS: Great Sand Dunes Soundscape
  • Manitou Springs and Echo Cliffs:
    • Sites where the landscape’s natural features create echo chambers, used for signaling, music, and ceremony.

Musical Significance and Metaphor

  • Land as Instrument:
    • These places show that Colorado’s geology is not just a backdrop for human activity, but an interactive participant in music and communication.
  • Natural Amplification:
    • Indigenous peoples, early settlers, and modern musicians have all recognized and used the special acoustic properties of these spaces, emphasizing an ancient human intuition: land and music co-create experience.
  • Community Gathering:
    • Amphitheaters and echo sites are natural gathering points, fostering music, spoken word, storytelling, and communal rituals.

Further Resources

Intersections of Music, Energy, and Colorado: Resources & References

Colorado’s sandstone cliffs, canyons, and amphitheaters are not only landmarks of geological history, but living instruments—shaping and magnifying music, connecting people, and reminding us that our stories are written in both stone and sound.

  • “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
    Tesla, Nikola. Cited in Seifer, Marc J. Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius. (1998).
  • Music, physics, and the science of vibration.
    Ball, Philip. The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It. Oxford University Press, 2010.

Pitch, Frequency & Landscape

  • Indigenous use of pitch and tuning, resonance in environment.
    McAllester, David P. “The Bear Dance of the Ute Indians.” Ethnomusicology, 1963.
    Southern Ute Cultural Center & Museum (Bear Dance Teacher Toolkit)
  • “Singing sand” natural resonance (Great Sand Dunes, CO):
    Haff, P. K., & Prechtel, P. E. “Singing Sand.” Scientific American, 241(2), 198-207, 1979.
    NPS Great Sand Dunes – Soundscape
  • Tesla’s work on frequency and resonance, Colorado Springs: Carlson, W. Bernard. Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Princeton University Press, 2013.

Rhythm, Pulse & Geological Cycles

  • Earth’s rhythmic processes, cyclical patterns (water, rock, atmosphere):
    National Park Service. “Rock Layers, Tree Rings, and Time.”
    NPS Geologic Time Lesson
  • Daily/seasonal cycles and Colorado weather patterns:
    Colorado Encyclopedia. “Climate of Colorado.”
    Colorado Encyclopedia: Climate
  • Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne rhythm and drumming in ceremony:
    Heth, Charlotte. Native American Dance: Ceremonies and Social Traditions. Smithsonian, 1992.
    Denver Art Museum: Indigenous Music

Harmony, Resonance & Community

  • Sympathetic resonance in science and music:
    Rossing, Thomas D. The Science of Sound. Addison Wesley, 2001.
  • Community singing and Indigenous harmony:
    Powers, William K. “Arapaho Music and Dance.” Plains Indian Musical Traditions, 1980.
    Keeling, Richard. Music and Culture in Native America. 2013.
  • Geological resonance (ringing rocks):
    National Park Service: Ringing Rocks

Communication, Language, & Tesla

Summary/Additional

  • Native Science and the Indigenous worldview:
    Cajete, Gregory. Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Clear Light Publishers, 2000.
  • Colorado’s musical crossroads history:
    History Colorado – American Indian Teacher Resources
    Colorado Encyclopedia. “Music of the American West.”
    Music History Reference

Sandstone Amphitheaters: Colorado’s Natural Soundscapes

1. Red Rocks Amphitheatre

  • Location: Just west of Denver, outside of Morrison.
  • Geological Features:
    • The amphitheater is framed by dramatic, tilted sandstone formations—Ship Rock and Creation Rock—formed over 300 million years by geological uplift and erosion.
    • The rocks are part of the Fountain Formation, whose composition and shape allow for stunning natural acoustics.
  • Musical Association:
    • Known internationally, Red Rocks is revered for its perfect, open-air sound quality. The curved sandstone walls reflect and amplify music, allowing performers and audiences to experience pure sound without electronic amplification.
    • The site has hosted Indigenous gatherings, community bands, world-famous concerts, and collaborative musical experiments, uniting people across diverse backgrounds through shared sonic experience.
    • The relationship between the land’s structure and the music made there highlights how geology can be an active “participant” in music-making.

2. Other Geological Music Sites in Colorado

  • Garden of the Gods:
    • While not a venue, the towering sandstone fins and formations create unique echo patterns and have long been sites of Indigenous song and acoustic experimentation.
  • The Great Sand Dunes “Singing Sands”:
    • In certain conditions, Colorado’s sand dunes emit a low, resonant humming or booming sound when grains slide together—a natural phenomenon of granular flow, known as “singing sand.”
    • NPS: Great Sand Dunes Soundscape
  • Manitou Springs and Echo Cliffs:
    • Sites where the landscape’s natural features create echo chambers, used for signaling, music, and ceremony.

3. Musical Significance and Metaphor

  • Land as Instrument:
    • These places show that Colorado’s geology is not just a backdrop for human activity, but an interactive participant in music and communication.
  • Natural Amplification:
    • Indigenous peoples, early settlers, and modern musicians have all recognized and used the special acoustic properties of these spaces, emphasizing an ancient human intuition: land and music co-create experience.
  • Community Gathering:
    • Amphitheaters and echo sites are natural gathering points, fostering music, spoken word, storytelling, and communal rituals.
    •  

Further Resources