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A new collection of beginner piano pieces is teaching kids about more than just their scales and triads.
Weaving Sounds: Elementary Piano Pieces by Native and Indigenous Composers is a new curated collection of pieces by Indigenous composers representing a wide variety of communities and musical traditions from across Turtle Island. The project was edited by Diné composer Renata Yazzie and Navajo pianist Connor Chee, and features a number of Canadian composers, including Sonny-Ray Day Rider, Beverly McKiver and Jessica Sparvier-Wells.
“I just jumped on the chance,” said Sparvier-Wells in an interview on Morning Light. “I have an opportunity to work with my community and to help create new works that beginners can play... giving students an opportunity to learn authentic music by ourselves instead of what people think."
A Cree composer and flutist from Cowessess, Saskatchewan, Sparvier-Wells grew up studying music the way many young musicians do: learning pieces from the Royal Conservatory of Music curriculums on the piano and beginning private lessons on flute in junior high school. Although she doesn’t remember much about the music she learned, Sparvier-Wells does remember the pieces that appropriated Indigenous culture with titles like “Kokopelli” and “Dream Catcher”.
“This is meant to kind of push away from that and show that we are a real people and that we’re diverse and that we’re our own people and we have our own voices,” Sparvier-Wells says, explaining the role that Weaving Sounds has to address those systemic problems. “We write, you know, stuff that’s authentic to us from our culture and our language.”
Although this isn’t Sparvier-Wells' first time writing music for piano, one thing she did have to learn was to mindful of using piano as a way for children to achieve specific learning outcomes. “It was hard work to take what I had originally had – like, all these falling snowflakes – down.”
“They pulled me back,” she continues with a laugh, remembering the editing process with Yazzie and Chee. “They were like, ‘You know this is [for] people who are just learning their fingers on the keyboard.”
“[Jessica’s] work is a reminder that Indigenous composers are not bound by one medium, or cultural tradition,” says Chee in a written statement. “McMann’s compositions break away from the stereotype that Indigenous music exists in a vacuum, disconnected from Western classical music or contemporary soundscapes. Instead, she skillfully weaves her cultural heritage into her music, making it clear that these two worlds can coexist and enrich one another.”
Sparvier-Wells has observed an enthusiastic response to this music that teaches through the lens of cultural heritage. “They’ve been waiting for this,” she says about people eager to learn the piano in her community. “They’ve been waiting for something like this because they’re tired of having what they have, which is usually not appropriate.”
“I think it’s a great first step and hopefully it’ll trigger more of these types of commissions that is accessible to the beginner levels of learning, any instrument and and in any situation like choir, or even band, too.”
Prospective music educators or aspiring piano students can acquire Weaving Sounds: Elementary Piano Pieces by Native and Indigenous Composers from Long & McQuade music stores.