The Sioux

Sioux

The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

 are a diverse group of Native Americans

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 generally divided into three subgroups: Lakota, Dakota and Nakota

Nakota

The term Nakota is the endonym used by the native peoples of North America who usually go by the name of Assiniboine , in the United States, and of Stoney, in Canada....

.

Among the Dakota, traditional dance song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

s generally begin in a high pitch

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

, led by a single vocalist

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

 (solo

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

) who sings a phrase

Phrase (music)

In music and music theory, phrase and phrasing are concepts and practices related to grouping consecutive melodic notes, both in their composition and performance...

 that is then repeated by a group. This phrase then cascades to a lower pitch until there is a brief pause

Pause

Pause may refer to a rest, hesitation, or temporary stop.Examples:* Fermata, a musical pause of indefinite duration* Pause key, the Pause/Break key on computer keyboards...

. Then, the song's second half, which echoes the first, is sung (incomplete repetition

Incomplete repetition

Incomplete repetition is a musical form featuring two large sections, the second being a partial or incomplete re-presentation or repetition of the first....

). The second part of the song often includes "honor beats", usually in the form of four beats representing cannon fire in battle. The entire song may be repeated several times, at the discretion of the lead singer.

Many songs use only vocable

Vocable

In speech, a vocable is an utterance, term, or word that is capable of being spoken and recognized. A non-lexical vocable is used without semantic role or meaning, while structure of vocables is often considered apart from any meaning...

s, syllabic

Syllabic

Syllabic may refer to:*Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages.*Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables...

 utterances with no lexical meaning. Sometimes, only the second half of the song has any lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

.

In some traditional songs, women sing one octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

 above the men, though they do not sing the first time the song is sung or the lead line at any time.

Percussion

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

 among the Dakota use drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

, sometimes with syncopation

Syncopation

In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...

. In competition songs, beats start off as an irregular ruffle and are then followed by a swift regular beat.

The Dakota Flag Song begins special events, such as powwow

PowWow

PowWow is a wireless sensor network mote developed by the Cairn team of IRISA/INRIA. The platform is currently based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard radio transceiver and on an MSP430 microprocessor...

s, and is not accompanied by a dance. Other kinds of songs honor veteran

Veteran

A veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...

s, warriors or others.

Non-Powwow types of Dakota songs include Sundance, Yuwipi, Inipi, courtship, flute, lullaby, Peyote, and Christian hymns.