Tara Browner's conceptually original and beautifully designed volume in the Music of the United States series (MUSA) breaks new ground in the field of ethnomusicology. This book differs markedly from other MUSA volumes, which offer critical editions of U.S. concert, popular, and folk music, or facsimiles of historic notations that illustrate interethnic musical exchange. By contrast, Browner presents exquisitely detailed transcriptions of thirteen songs performed during an afternoon session of the 2001 powwow sponsored by the UCLA American Indian Student Association. However, this edition is not “just another exercise in transcription” (xviii). Rather, it is a critical interpretation of songs from an oral tradition, notated in such a way that they could conceivably be performed by other musicians. Thus Browner has created what she calls an ethnographic edition of music. At the same time, she illuminates a style that has been in the foreground of ethnomusicology for nearly sixty years.Footnote ¹

Following the standard MUSA template, the edition includes an introductory essay; the transcriptions are accompanied by critical notes, an apparatus, and a bibliography. Browner's introduction, “The Role of Musical Transcription in the Work of Ethnography,” offers a summary of the concepts and issues surrounding transcription in ethnomusicology. By the 1990s, many ethnomusicologists had begun to dismiss transcriptions that employ Western staff notation, in part because they were perceived as “a version of musical colonization” (xiv), and in part because the availability of good audio recordings with reliable liner notes apparently made transcription redundant. However, Browner defends the use of transcription in the analysis and interpretation of oral musical cultures. She argues that the process of transcription remains central to the study of Native American music because it is rarely possible for non-Native researchers, especially women, to learn details of form, style, and performance practice through direct participation in community music making. Therefore, “to transcribe a song . . . is often as close as an outsider can get to the performing opportunities taken for granted by students of other traditions” (xv).

Browner outlines the history of transcription in the ethnomusicology of Native North America, concluding that scholars have prioritized form, scale, and melodic contour, often ignoring other aspects of performance, especially the drum.Footnote ² Yet powwows center on the drum. “The drum,” Browner explains, “figuratively and spiritually sounds their heartbeat, organizing both the physical dance spaces and the cyclical passage of time” (xix). From the perspective of powwow singers and dancers, the drum does not accompany them; they accompany the drum (xxi). A central value underlying Browner's approach to transcription, then, is the orientation of her score around the drum part. She includes separate staves that use a basic system of dots and directional arrows to show how dancers coordinate their movements with the drum beat. The vocal lines in the top staff correlate only loosely with the drum, except at cadences, and measure lines are omitted. In this way, Browner solves the alignment problem that has perplexed transcribers of Native American music for decades. Furthermore, her approach reflects the spiritual belief “that the drum is a living being with a voice separate from that of the singers” (224).

Browner's transcriptions are a model of precision. She writes out each song in its entirety, instead of using repeat signs, to illustrate the spontaneous variations that occur in each successive strophe and to convey a larger sense of time within the powwow session as a whole. In her notations, she pays particular attention to phrasing, dynamics, articulation, and intonation. Despite her attention to detail, the transcriptions are clean and readable. The critical commentary for each transcription identifies the song's title, genre, and performers, the date on which the song was transcribed, narrative notes on the song's form, the song text and translation, tempos, dynamics, accents, tonality, variations, ornamentation, and any unusual characteristics. The apparatus further explains her transcription and notation methods; it is the most thorough published explanation available on the process (222).

A particularly valuable feature of the edition is the information on powwow style and performance practice that the transcriptions themselves reveal. Browner makes four important points. First, dynamic changes originate from the drum, not the singers, in powwow music. Second, in Southern-style War Dance songs, the opening solo performed by the lead singer becomes shorter as the tempo of the song increases. Third, contemporary Northern-style War Dance songs employ a series of short phrases that are unrelated to the opening melody, and in this way they contrast sharply with older songs in the genre. Finally, powwow song form is undergoing radical change among Northern singers, while Southern singers adhere to more conservative practices.

Another valuable feature of the edition is Browner's discussion of form in powwow songs (xxv). She writes that the form of contemporary War Dance songs evolved from an earlier binary-form genre. During the 1820s, singers extended the binary form by repeating the second half of the song before cycling back to the start; this became known as the “Omaha” style. Then, between 1890 and 1918, singers further elaborated the second half of the song by inserting a cadential phrase, which resulted in a strophic form with three sections. Browner diagrams the form of one strophe as A'A / BC / BC. The strophe as a whole is repeated several times; singers refer to each strophe as a round, push-up, or set. Within the transcriptions, Browner labels each repetition of the song as Round 1, Round 2, and so forth. However, she chose to label the three main sections within each strophe as A, B, and C (as opposed to A'A / BC / BC). She explains that “this determination was based upon the fact that these transcriptions are intended for a critical musical edition, and not a text devoted to large-scale examinations of musical form” (223). Browner's decision makes sense given that she has transcribed each song in its entirety, but it also challenges readers to think about powwow song form differently from the way to which we have become accustomed. Furthermore, although all of the songs adhere to the same basic form, internal details of phrase design differ between the Northern and Southern styles, and some melodies are unusually complex, such as the “Contest Song” in Transcription 9 (95–113). Browner's presentation of thirteen transcriptions gives readers the opportunity to appreciate this variety.

In preparing an ethnographic edition of music she recorded in the field, Browner has represented the intricate performance practices that make powwow song style distinctive. Her volume constitutes a significant contribution to the MUSA series as well as to the study of Native American music and the discipline of ethnomusicology as a whole. It represents a major advance in the theory of transcription as an analytical and interpretive method, and in the description and understanding of powwow musical culture. Above all, Browner shows clearly that “Western notation, whatever its drawbacks and limitations, remains the closest thing to a universal scheme for representing musical sounds” (xiv).